transmetahuman

Re: Is MultiForm Broken?

Now we have MM. He has a 240pt character that needs absolutely NO combat skills what so ever. None. He can spend 240 points and be entirely non-combat. He could buy the vehicles' date=' wealth, contacts and all of the skills to be more effective than SL, and what has he sacraficed for it (remember SL took a hit on his combat side)? Nothing. He still has 300 points of combat effectiveness. So while he'll be 30 points less than CM, he's still a pretty effective combatant, and has just rendered SL useless.[/quote']Technically, MM shouldn't have access to Wealth, Vehicles, etc. in his combat monster mode - or he should have to buy them for both forms. Doesn't solve the problem, I know, but it's a point worth making.

Re: Elementals Sourcebook?

That's actually a copy of "The Natural Order" which collected the first 4 (5?) issues' date=' the Saker run, in one TPB. So it's a very small slice of the story overall, but arguably, one of the tastier ones.[/quote']Damn. No way am I going to be able to buy up the individual issues for the later stories. I thought that was a little too cheap for a book as thick as it would have to be... oh well. SirKerry, maybe you could pass along my fervent hope that the rest see print in TPB form to the current rights holder?

 

Thanks for the info, proditor.

Re: Elementals Sourcebook?

EDIT: I also have a nigh complete run of the comic if you need anything Kerry.

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain?

My Favorite Villain as A GM is Citadel...

 

I got more of a reaction when I introduced Citadel with all his various powers then when the heroes came up against Dr D.

I think they knew the good Dr would be tough. But Citadel was an unknown and displayed way too many powers for them to comprehend.

Re: Elementals Sourcebook?

Would anyone be interested in an official licensed Elementals Sourcebook for HERO System/Champions?

Haha, yeah.... more so than those other two. Loved the Elementals.

Re: Voidwarp Fun

There is nothing under the Trigger description that says it won't work like that. An example the book gives is a landmine. That's just a no-range EB that attacks (Makes an OCV roll) when stepped on. In this case, I'm substituting Teleport for the EB. I still need an attack roll and have set the TP with the Advantage Usable As Attack.

 

Unless I'm misreading the effect.

Ah, I thought you were trying to eliminate the attack roll. And I'm not up on Triggers anyway; I could be totally off. I seem to remember Steve suggesting some kind of Trigger build to replace Damage Shield altogether, too, which suggests it could be used to eliminate the attack roll somehow. But I'd still prefer the DS build.

Re: Voidwarp Fun

I don't have my books handy, but I don't think a Trigger can target someone like that. I'd use a Damage Shield instead.

Re: Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion and the people in it.

You might find lots of ideas in one of these threads:

[thread=10457]Constructing a mage's mansion - Nov 23rd, '03[/thread]

[thread=14104]Mansion Plans Wanted - Feb 22nd, '04[/thread]

[thread=14352]Avengers Mansion San Francisco - Feb 28th, '04[/thread]

[thread=17962]A Mage's Mansion - Jun 6th, '04[/thread]

[thread=57981]Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion - Jul 29th, '07[/thread]

[thread=58140]Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion, version 2.0 - Aug 5th, '07[/thread]

[thread=58600]Brainstorming a superhero team's staff, liaisons, and guests - Aug 23rd, '07[/thread]

Re: [Campaign Log..kinda]Small Wonders

first thing I thought of...

 

Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Get it out of my brain!

Re: [Campaign Log..kinda]Small Wonders

"Must spread rep" yada yada. Thanks for taking the time for this, I'm really looking forward to reading more.

Re: Gestalt Now Available In Color

Waiting for the B&W print version to make its way to my FLGS. GURPS Supers made me realize how little I like .pdfs of gaming books, even though I can spend half my day reading stuff online otherwise. And I'm just not enamored enough of color to shell out the extra $30.

I thought it was funny-weird that the buy-button for the color version showed up on the Blackwyrm site before the buy-button for the B&W, though. The gods really do like to tease me, it seems.

Re: Heroes

Last thing

Spoiler

 

 

The show does not ever change who is going to explode its always peter right from the start everyone thinks it sylar its not and at the end of the last show when his brother flies him up thats the change from what happened in the future world, in original time line congressman got his brain eaten to give sylar flight, in this world he dies Peter DOES NOT! but no matter what if you watch and listen to the future episode its always been Peter he just never told anyone

(insert comment here)

Re: [Character] Riot (II), Revised

As far as the too-young savant stuff goes, well, he's a duplicator. He *might* have had one dupe studying one thing while another studied another while another slept while another made pie... etc. With GM permission, as the saying goes, to let the combined form collate all the knowledge from each dupe. I actually expected that to crop up as his solution when I got to the part about him missing sleep and getting overwhelmed by his workload in the description.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

A few from this week's Fantasy Hero session...

 

Ben (ooc): Ron is poking your cat with a banana.

Bill (ooc): That had better be a metaphor.

Errr... ewww. Dude. Shouldn't that be "That had better not be a metaphor"?

Player: Won't that depends on what's on the bookshelf?

Me (as a zombie): "Oh no, Finnegan's Wake! Nobody can get through that!"

Re: Build Question: Alethiometer

Great suggestions, all. This gives me something to work from.

 

As far as how individualized can the answers be: Lyra, early in the second book, asks the alethiometer about the identity of a boy she's just met, who happens to be from a parallel Earth. The alethiometer correctly identifies a fairly significant event in the boy's past that convinces Lyra that he'd be a worthy traveling companion. So yes, the answers can be very individualized and specific. I'm trying to remember other such questions, but nothing's coming at the moment.

 

 

This actually is a very good way to handle it, I think. I wonder if you've read the books...?

I have; at least the latter two. What stuck in my head were the times it told Lyra what she "should" be doing - we learn later that there is sapience involved behind the answers.

For this reason, I'd probably model it as the mother of all Organization Contacts - though I might add a 10-point Computer Link and some Transdimensional Precognitive Clairsentience in on top of that.

Actually, I'd never stat it because I'd never, ever let a PC both have one and be trained in its use. IIRC, it could tell you anything at all, with absolute accuracy, including what would inevitably happen - the only reason Lyra wasn't omniscient was that she rarely asked the questions that I would have asked in her situation.

Re: Heroes

Not revealing them fully until the end is not the same thing as changing them.

Basically, sometimes things are changed because of foreknowledge, other things are unalterable, still others are self-fulfilling prophecies. People whose memories should be altered by having their past change are immune because of PC status (where is Future Hiro going to be, when Young Hiro reaches that point in normal time? Fifty bucks says they don't address it)... It's the most comic-booky aspect of the show. Anyone who's followed my posts know I hate time travel and precog in games, and I've got good game reasons for it - but I also hate that stuff, and anything that smacks of a plot being "fated", in stories. I think it's hackneyed, unsatisfying, and it actually undermines any heroism or *any* of the choices being made. I'd much rather all the unlikely coincidences were just coincidences, than some stupid fate thing going on.

Re: Heroes

I'm a total sucker for "people with powers" stories. I think the writers made a lot of mistakes, some of them really bad. I agree with several of Balabanto's points. I really wish the guy who'd been lucky enough to be the one in charge of this concept was at least someone who'd glanced at comic books before, if only to avoid storylines and problem areas (e.g. defining the limitations of time travel & prophecy, instead of changing them every time the plot needs it, or the rehashes of

that we comics readers & sci-fi fans have seen umpteen times. Why couldn't one of our own have gotten the show about superpowers named "Heroes", dangit!?

But the 4400 (for instance) is worse on almost all counts, I can't even watch that anymore. Heroes has some really great moments, and characters that I enjoy watching. It's definitely not a superheroes show; maybe more an exploration of the different paths people take when confronted with the opportunity for heroism - and I'm fine with that. I'm hoping the writers will learn from some of their mistakes, and I'll definitely be watching it.

Re: Mental Sense

I was going to object to the need for LOS, thinking about invisible mentalists and those N-Ray tunnelers, but it's written right there under Mental Awareness. I would let it work on someone behind you, as per the discussion of LOS, and of course exotic targeting senses of your own will affect your LOS.

Re: Would Marvel/DC Sue?

Now' date=' characters from older literature(e.g. - Thor, Hercules) are part of the public domain. You can use just so long as you don't "adapt them to the new world" the same way.[/quote']Thanks, that was great info in the whole post. I focus on this section because I remember a Norse Storm God Guy living on the moon with a TV and a big hammer who very carefully wasn't called "Thor" (in the Elementals comic). Another example of excessive caution? Though now when I google it, it seems later issues than I ever saw did go ahead and call him Thor.

 

While I'm on the subject, I've seen tons of characters in comics, movies and shows that use the same names as RPG characters that predate them in publication. I always assumed they got away with it because RPG companies are too poor to go to court over that kind of thing (or too gentlemanly), and it always seemed unfair. Given what people are saying, though, it looks like it's more an issue of the names not being trademarked?

Re: Would Marvel/DC Sue?

Yeah, totally a non-issue for most campaigns, and if it comes up I'll probably just assume that, though Marvel, DC, etc. do exist and did put out comics characters, their characters just happened to use different names than the ones me or my players want to use. Problem solved.

It wasn't for a traditional crimefighters-in-spandex game, anyway - I'd think that would lead to some weird self-consciousness issues, not to mention severe camp at times. An existing history of comicbook supers probably works best in worlds where real supers have existed since at least the Golden Age ("The comics are imitating us, not vice-versa"), or worlds where supers don't go that route at all.

This one is more of a cross between Gestalt, Willingham's Elementals, and Aberrant-without-the-rust-or-angst. More "demigods getting caught up in stuff" than "I want to fight crime, but I don't want to be a cop like normal people who want to fight crime" (absolutely no offense intended towards traditional supers, which I like too). I think some comicbook elements would be unavoidable for these guys, and there will be "code-names" for most, but the world's Marvel and DC would have a hell of a time even proving that they could be considered "super-heroes".

It led to some interesting speculation about comics in more traditional supers worlds, though.

Re: Buffy-style Slayer and friends in Hero question

Let's not forget that for some reason the Scooby Gang characters all have the Disad' date=' "Can't act their way out of a wet paper bag unless it's life or death". Every time nobodies life was in danger and they had to perform some form of entertainment it was a disaster. Even in Angel Cordelia's stage debut was painful ("We could yell fire, technically it's not a crowded theatre.").[/quote']Ahh. At first I thought you meant the actors, not the characters, and I was going to have to respectfully disagree with you, with extreme prejudice (though the actors all had their moments, too). I guess I haven't seen enough episodes to clue into the character disad. Besides, some of them did pretty well in "Once More, With Feeling", right? Or was that the supernatural boost.

 

Buffy isn't the first Slayer to have friends' date=' remember the ex-demon hunter puppet? He was friends (well a little more) with a Slayer back in the '20s and presumably others have had people around them as well, although maybe not more than one at a time. It's just that it's implied it's not common and it's not what the Watchers would like. They're all dead now so what they like doesn't matter.[/quote']Hear, hear!

 

It's almost embarrassing how little I know the show that I would unhesitatingly call my favorite TV show, ever... but I don't watch that much TV in general. I'll take your word for both points.

Re: Would Marvel/DC Sue?

For any others the character would probably just get a cease-and-desist order' date=' and the companies would likely try to help the offender come up with a better name (as NBC Universal did for the six -- yes, [i']six[/i] -- second-season WWTBAS contestants who needed name changes). For example, Clonus' Wolverine character might be suggested as Mr. Wolverine, Wolfmaster, and others.

I mean, "cannonball" is a word in the dictionary; Marvel can't own it. If DC (or the real supers in this supposed campaign) came up with a Cannonball who was a short fat female swimmer/diver with water shockwave powers - nothing like the southern mutant with all the siblings except the name - what could Marvel really do? Obviously both companies can have a Hercules, Zeus, Odin, etc. Just as obviously, names that aren't words (Spider-Man, She-Hulk) would cross the line. But can a company actually own the use of the word "hulk" or "flash", or just own the use in particular contexts, in conjunction with specific imagery?

I've been thinking about campaigns where supers are recent phenomena, and history diverges when they show up. Also how "all the good names are taken" by Marvel, DC, etc.

Supposing supers do co-exist with our major comics companies, I'd assume that most would know better than to take a popular, well-known fictional super's name like Superman or Batman - those that did would be soundly mocked and the press/public might even refuse to use the name the real person chose, coming up with something else. But what about the less well-known characters? Especially the ones whose names were taken from even earlier stories or myths? If someone innocently calls himself Goliath, or Cyclops, or Medusa - what would Marvel do? If the super has a secret ID, what could Marvel do? Would it make a difference whether or not the powersets are similar?

I'm going to assume the idea of sponsoring the hero as a "real life" version of the fictional one won't often work - either the corporation requires more control or the super himself is uninterested. And of course there are the villains (can you imagine a dangerous meta holding a bankful of hostages, when one of them geeks out about how "he" was defeated by Captain America a hundred issues ago? And was shown to be gay when the character was revived last year?). Would the comics companies just drop the characters with the same name? Change the fictional characters' names? Try to sue? Ignore the whole thing?

Thoughts?

Re: Sanctuary.....Anyone Use It ?

I absolutely agree with this analysis. In the end' date=' Sanctuary type places require a deux ex machina capable of enforcing the peace in the sanctuary. I have never been able to get past the issue of why such an all powerful being would be willing to devote their attention to creating such a place.[/quote']

A Gestalt of Peace might have a non-violence aura. They don't have to be all-powerful, just all-powerful in this one area, with this one power.

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this has been brought up already. I think there's a very obvious reason for SPD creep in characters, and why characters that "should" have normal-human speeds don't. The difference between SPD 2 and SPD 4 is huge compared to the difference between SPD 5 and SPD 7. If your PCs are clustered around the low end of the scale, the fast guys will be getting a lot more relative screen time than in a group clustered around SPDs 5-7. It ain't fun for a slower character to sit out most of the game because the other guys are getting 3 actions to his 2, or 2 to his 1.

If I was designing HERO from scratch, with a time machine, I'd make "normal" SPD be 5 or even 10 (with a 24 segment turn), just so those first few increases weren't so disproportionately effective. Yeah, it'd mean all kinds of adjustments to movement and whatnot; I'm not advocating it now. But people shouldn't be surprised by SPD creep, and IMO shouldn't worry too much about comparison to normals when lowering the range can make the game measurably less fun for the slowpokes.