DocMan

The other one was when we were trying to deal with a group called The Circle. They were led by a guy who called himself The Admiral and thought that he was a great mastermind. My character was Moleculon, a brick/shapeshifter. The Circle had been sending clues to the newspapers, then pulling off robberies based on the clues. The Admiral's way of making us look bad. I think the whole thing was a series of 8 or 10 cryptic clues. The Circle themselves were a heirarchy of agents who pulled off these crimes in power armor. After the second robbery, while our group of heros was puzzling over the clues, I said, "Look, we don't need to figure all of these clues out. We just need to show up at the next robbery, smash a few heads, capture one of their guys and I'll take his place and fly back to their base, giving you directions the whole way." Knocker, a glorified cop in power armor, looked at Moleculon and said, "You can do that?" In answer, Moleculon activates his Instant change, any outfit, and shifts into an exact duplicate of Knocker's armor, except his lights don't work. Knocker turns to the GM and says, "Can he do that?" Doc

Two favorite role playing moments come to mind. First, was a bit more combat than role play, but it works. I was playing my Mentalist Psi Lord. Our trio of heros had gone into combat against a group called the Gemstones. Psi Lord has a mad-on about mentalists who turn to crime, so he was going after Opal, the enemy mentalist. After a few mental exchanges, they'd pretty much determined that the two of them could hurt each other, but it would be a battle of inches. The rest of the team was outnumbered and wasn't fareing well... So Psi Lord switched to his backup plan. He flies at Opal, with his arm cocked to throw a punch. Opal goes, "Oh, please! What are you gonna do? Hit me? Hey, why is your hand glowing like..." WHAM! Psi Lord uses his TK Boosted punch (a few dice of HA w/ Double Knockback), and send Opal flying into the wall. The metal corrugated wall is pounded out flat in a boom that rattles the entire warehouse. The entire battle stops as everyone turns to look at Psi Lord. He turns to the rest of the combatants and says, "Ok, that's one." At least that's the way I remember it...

Right. It's an Abort Action, so it requires an available phase to pull from... Ok. New tactic. What about the classic tactic of creating a Teleport Gate under a character's feet to teleport them up a hex so they just keep falling through the same hex over and over again? I'd be tempted to make this as an entangle that either loses a body every phase, or otherwise has a fixed or limited duration. This makes it more of a fire-and-forget power. Thoughts? Doc

If I Remember Correctly. IIRC. Doc

I knew you guys knew the new rules better than I do. Ok... we have... +x DCV, Only vs Ranged attacks, Must be aware of attack (-1/2), w/ SFX of small, reflexive teleport gates. Desolid, AOE 1 hex, Only to avoid damage(-1/2), Concentration? Missle Deflection, all attacks, Reflection, indirect The last is when he's turning his opponent's powers against them as an active offense. Thanks for the help. Doc

Gee, it was going so well until you got to Megascale... Doc

I'm playing around with a character concept of a teleporter who creates "gates" which normal objects can pass through. One aspect of this idea is to have a defense reflex where if the character can see an attack coming, he can open a gate between himself and the attack and cause it to teleport from in front of him to behind him. In a lot of ways, this is like Missle Deflection, or a limited Desolid, only to avoid taking damage from certain attacks. The problem is that Missle Deflection would cause the character to sacrifice actions to apply this defense, and the Desolid would cause the character to buy Affects real world with all his attacks. This is the character's primary form of defense. I don't think it should be this expensive. Any ideas how I could build this differently? Doc

That would be Lila Cheyney. She was a mutant teleporter who could only teleport stellar distances. In order to teleport accross the street, she had to teleport to another planet and teleport back. Doc

Yeah, I've always viewed the Fastball Special as a convenient way for two characters with limited movement to get one of their number into striking range of a distant foe. Damage wise, its a more difficult than normal Move-By/through. I think we've only done it once or twice. Irony is that one of the times it was my brick, Moleculon, who was thrown. He has growth and shrinking powers. So he shrinks down to his smallest size, gets a teammate to throw him, and then grows to maximum height. Memory says that the number of dice to roll at once was horrific. Another similar tactic I used to use was in my first Champions campaign. I had a teleporting MA with clinging and a force sword. One of my teammates was a flying brick in an armor suit. My character would cling to his back, and he would fly among the enemies. He would do Move By's on the enemies on one side while I would do MA attacks (+ velocity bonus) on the opposite side. The GM at that time ruled that since my character wasn't spending effort moving, he could focus his full strength on the strikes. Doc

So, what kind of help were you wanting here? Doc

I like the fact that my "brick"s are strange, unusual, and more flexible than the typical strongman damagesponge version of the Brick. Maybe I should make a sterotypical brick just to make Klytus happy... Hmmm... how much abuse can I create by putting all my points into STR and defenses? Doc

I think I'm gonna have to side with the Mental Defense school here. Psychic invisibility works because the mentalist is broadcasting a thought that makes people ignore his presence. That thought has to penetrate the subject's brains for him to be invisible. If someone has the wrong class of mind, or defenses that block out the thought, it wouldn't be as effective. I'm thinking it should really be bought as a Mind Control, only one command "Ignore me", Area effect, Reduced by range, invisible power effects. Then you're putting dice rolled vs mental defense. You also get the effect of Guy 1: There he is! Guy 2: Where did he go? Guy 1: Where did who go? Guy 2: The guy we were after? Guy 1: I thought you saw somebody? Guy 2: Saw who? Guy 1: I dunno. Lunch? Guy 2: Sounds good... Doc

I considered looking at it as SFX, but in my opinion there are definate advantages involved, and the skill use seemed the proper way to approach it. YMMV. Doc

Actually, hiding behind the invisible guy is a great tactic. The enemy can see you, and shoot at you, but they hit him! Of course, this will kinda piss off the invisible guy... And there's that pesky "See Invisible" power you have to buy, but otherwise, hey! ::considering creating an invisible brick character:: Doc

I'd just rule that he can talk normally and risk being overheard, or if he wants to keep things quiet he can use a skill called "Subvocalize". This would allow him to buzz his vocal cords enough for the mike to pick up, but not be heard. A failed role would indicate either that the message did not make sense to the listener, or that he failed to be quiet. Doc

Seeing as the different components of the cheesburger have varying degrees of aerodynamic sculpting, I think Supes would be lucky to be able to throw a cheesburger to the next block. But it does make me wonder who started the food fight... Doc

From last Saturday's D&D game: Our party rides into a town on the way to the Baron's residence. I suggest we got to an Inn for lunch and to get information from the locals. One of the other players suggests: "We should ask the Gown Tards about what's happened." Doc

I've been thinking about this power recently. Been thinking about a character who can manipulate gravity. This would bring up two distinct CE effects: 1) create an area of high gravity, 2) create an area of zero gravity. I'm not sure quite how I'd achieve the proper effect without just leaning HARD on SFX. Anyone got an idea? Doc

I gotta agree with Supreme. When confronted with an unkillable enemy that you MUST kill, hand him an unshielded singularity and get off of the planet fast! Doc

And almost all the male characters don't put any points into COM at all. "Yes, I'm an average looking guy with superpowers. And that means I get to hang out with women who put supermodels to shame! " COM just seems to be the only stat that doesn't really DO anything. Unless your charcter is particularly based of of social skills (The Incredibly Charming Schmoose Man! "Hi there!" ), high COM scores just take away points that could be spent elsewhere. Like Stun. Yes a good COM score might be very much in character, but could you build a character around it? It's MUCH more likely to represent a good looking character with a high PRE score instead. Doc

Intra-party conflict can be a great roleplay tool. It can also rip a party to pieces. I doubt you've too much to worry about with the Judge/Reformed Criminal dynamic. This is mostly because he's a Reformed criminal. He's actively trying to be good. And if the Judge comes down on him for some of his actions, he has a variety of replies to pull out of his hat. Such as "It's not a crime when we do it! We're cops now! The whole 'In the line of duty' thing. You have studied LAW haven't you?" And "You know, Judge, it was a lot easier going straight until you came along. But being around you just makes certain crimes seem more and more appealing." And the ever popular, "Do I have to get a restraining order to get you off my back?" These characters can have some delightful bickering provided no one takes it too far. And the Judge can easily become the character everyone loves to hate. I played in one campaign where one of the characters was basicly a cop on a hardshell. He was a street cop who'd been given a battlesuit. His schtick was that everything had to be by the book. So, whenever we stopped a group of criminals, he'd open his portable forms drawer and start passing out "After Action Report"s for us all to fill out. Most of us just waited until he turned his back and threw them away. The EB in the party had endless fun making his suit lights burn out. We all made fun of him one way or another, but it created a group dynamic that worked. And he was true to his character. It was a conflict that worked. For the others, I wouldn't be surprised to find one or both of the gadgeteers creating blasters and force fields soon after the first fight. Figure on one of them to fill the EB slot full time. However, you might have to lower typical speeds in your campaign. Doc

Um... never depend on your players to do something expected? Of course, some players do take GM overrides in better graces than others. I guess it depends on your point of view. I know that some players feel that the GM is taking over playing their character. At least the player in question does. I tend to look at it this way: If G.O.D. wants my player to do something other that what I had in mind, I've just stumbled into a MAJOR IMPORTANT PLOT POINT. To not go with G.O.D.'s flow is to suck up failure like a sponge. Of course, once I understand what G.O.D. wants me to do, I reserve the right to spin my characters reactions as I believe most appropriate. Doc

Actually, I'd say the best way to handle this is to alter the SFX. The battlesuit has an onboard AI. But instead of the AI being brought online when the pilot is knocked out, the AI is online ALL THE TIME. That means that the player really needs to play TWO characters who are both contained in the same battlesuit. The pilot is usually in control, but the AI (let's call him Copilot) points things out, gives advice, and handles things the pilot is too busy for. Copilot can also take over all systems if the pilot is knocked out. Give the pilot a link so he can talk to Copilot when out of hero id, and the Battlesuit can come to him. And the press can get good shots of his public ID thanking the Battlesuited hero for saving them, thus protecting his secret ID as the battlesuited hero. Accounting wise, you buy the character with the battlesuit and buy an AI that runs the battlesuit. Oh, and give both pilot and Copilot some levels in teamwork skills. Doc

Under the napkins, next to your Precog Burger Plus with pickles and extra mustard. Doc

"Thank you for coming to Precog Burger! Here is your order, that will be $8.37, which we've already deducted from your account. There's napkins, salt, and extra catsup. Have a good evening, don't take the bypass on the way home, and we'll see you next Tuesday for lunch!" Doc