Alverant

Re: Genocide Tecnhically Franklin Richards is not a mutant. Mutants are unexpected alterations in an organism's DNA at conception. His parents are mutates, their DNA altered after conception. Franklin's DNA (as far as we know) was not altered at conception and any abilities he has are natural. Now if you go with the non-technical defination of mutant, someone born with powers, then yes Franklin is one.

Re: Genocide On the other hand, superhumans who were once normals who had an accident could be more acceptable with the same logic people use when justifing not going to the doctor on a regular basis, yakking on the cell phone while driving, etc because those sort of things happen to "other people". Mutants are something else. You could create one. Mutants didn't suffer any accidents, no exposure to radiation, no high tech armor, no supercop. Mutants just are. That's what frightens people. Your boss, your neighbor, your daughter, could have uncontrollable power and not even know it. Now I know a lot of this can be applied to other superhumans. For all you know the rude neighbor down the block is a supervillain in disguise. But remember mutants exist in real life. They don't have powers. They often have deformities we call "birth defects" or if you want to use softer language "genetic disorders". So parents of a mutant know something they can't accept, they made their child a mutant. They are responsible.

Re: Build Challenge: Mythbusters! No, the intro says they have 30+ years of special effects experience. Jamie has Jack of All Trades and a bunch of PS to reflect all the jobs he did prior to the show. Adam has luck (and unluck) and cramming. They're not scientists but they have practical science skills like physics, mechanical engineering, chemistry, math, etc. Along with PS skills like carpentry, welding, plumbing. Plus standard skills like electronics, mechanics, robotics, various TF, WF small arms. Since we're making super-versions of them, I'd throw in Hunted by Buster. Seems CLOWN decided it would be funny if the dummy came to life. They didn't count on Buster nursinging a heavy grudge all these years.... Would the rest of the crew count as Followers, DNPC, or independent NPCs of lower skill levels?

Re: Character concept: Mecha Mark Rand: Who says you have to do anything with the right arm? The left arm has the bow which can be built in. The right arm needs to be free to draw and fire the bow. Having a Daedelus-style right arm would effectively leave you fingerless (and gain a character disadvantage, No Right Hand). Plus in mecha history, swords are in the right hand unless the blade is built-in. I can see a retractiable weapon like Robocop's data-spike. Trained Chicken: "The way you have it sounds a lot like Darkhawk, and that never really set right with me." Out of curiousity, what doesn't sit right with you, Darkhawk himself or the similarities between him and this character? (I'm a Darkhawk fan.) Weldun: Actually there are three other Unicron-sized Transformers (making SDF-1 the fifth largest mecha). Omega Prime and Starscreen both grew to planet-size in Transformers Superlink (Energon) and Galaxy Force (Cybertron) respectively. Also in Galaxy Force, Cybertron itself transformed into Primus. Galaxy Force prime has pretty good legs. They're thick, have a wheel and each one has gun at the knee and when combined with Sonic Bomber has another gun attached at the ankle.

Re: WWYCD: Culture Shock

Re: WWYCD: Culture Shock Agreed. I didn't buy the mutant spam books, I focused on heroes/heroines who I felt earned their powers in some way. Naturally many of these books got canceled. Marvel is close to loosing me thanks to Civil War. On the bright side if things keep going bad in Civil War, Marvel may have to do a reboot like what happened in the DC universe several times. Just start from scratch, and none of that Ultimate stuff.

Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I think some things just don't translate period into Hero. Some parts of the game are characteristic of being a first person shooter computer game instead of a tabletop RPG. For example you have how they run END. Without endurance modifiers, some abilities in CoX would cost a dozen or more END in Hero, yet in CoX, everyone has 100 (or 105 with a special reward) END. Powers can cost fractions of an END and are expected to run almost all the time. Then you have the Taunt power. Not sure how to do it in Hero without having it cost tons of points, or at least far more points to make it useful. Kali is right, a direct translation would be inherantly incomplete. It doesn't matter in the computer game how smart or attractive or even how skilled the character is, but it does in the RPG. And it's hard in Hero do have an Inspiration and Enhancement system set up. The best thing to do is just play it by ear and not get bogged down in the details.

Re: Ideas for a circus/carnival themed villain team I'm surprised no one has mentioned the City of Heroes group Carnies. Nasty baddies in white clown make-up. It's like an undead Carnival of Souls. When you defeat them, they have this nasty END drain as you see their souls leave their bodies. There are ring-throwers, knife-throwers, strong men (with wooden "test your strength" mallets), illusionsists (that goes desolid), fire breathers, and ring mistresses. In Champions, I'd give them Telepathy and Mental Transform since City of Heroes doesn't do much role playing.

Re: Would you play… I was thinking about a varient of this type of game. You start out as normal/competent humans (say 100 pts) and the whole group has an origin at the same time. The GM gives them 25 XP to spend immediately. At the end of the session they still get their usual XP reward. Each session afterward you give them another 25 XP at dramatically appropiate times until they are at 350 (without the XP they earned at the end of the session). The players will spent their 25 XP in advance then bring them into play when the GM says so. That's enough for 10 sessions. Example, with the first 25XP you buy a 20pt multipower with 2 slots (24 pts with one left over). During a combat the next session you get a good hit (make it by 2). The GM says to spent the next 25XP. You planned in advance to boost the multipower to 40 points and a +1OCV with the first slot (spending the next 26 pts). The third time you boost it by 10pts and bump up your speed by 1. The characters is still discovering their powers, but the players controls what powers are purchased.

Re: Supervillain Psych Lims: The Reboot Give him an agenda, something that makes him a villain, but under certain circumstances, can make him an ally. For example in Gundam Wing, several of the villains had honorable goals. The problem was how they went about doing it. I don't remember the names too well, but one was an honorable warrior. When his fight with the main hero was interrupted, he went to great lengths to get it started again. He even included the existing damage to their robots as a factor. He believed in a fair fight. But he didn't care too much about who else got hurt. He tried not to involve civilians, but not too hard. He didn't hold a grudge against those who beat him except to get a rematch. In the end, you had respect for him.

Re: Contact Question Right, that's when your request is passed along. What I think freakboy was talking about was when your contact introduces you to other contacts, so you can go directly to them and bypass the middle-man Contacts can be abused if you're not careful. What if the "significant contacts" also have "significant contacts of their own" who in turn hava "significant contacts of their own"? Every contact has their own web of contacts so they PC only has to buy one contact. That way regardless of what needs to be done he knows someone who knows someone who knows someone that can help.

Re: Alternate Earth: Pulp World My technomage would definately be a weird/mad scientist.

Re: Contact Question

I just bought a 1pt contact defined as a resident of Bablyon for my super-mage. I didn't define him/her/it at all (spur of the moment thing). Since it's one point, it doesn't have "useful position" or similar adders. My question is, could I add "useful position" later, justifing it by saying that as the two characters associate more and trust grows the contact reveals more of what he can do. For instance in ST:DS9 Bashir had a contact with Garak. At first it was Plain Simple Garak but as the series went on, we find out Garak was more powerful than he let on. He knew people, but Bashir didn't know that and Garak didn't talk to those people on Bashir's behalf until later.

Re: Would you play… I remember running an El-Hazard campaign where this was involved. Part of the campaign setting is that normal people from Earth and pulled into El-Hazard and given special powers. You don't know what your powers are, but you discover them quickly. The BESM was run more as roleplaying with less combat so the powers weren't as important. I don't remember what I gave everyone but I know one person's powers only worked when he was calm. After your flight fails a few times when you get excited, you quickly realize the limitation. But I only gave a few powers along the same theme (fire aura), what we're talking here is more complex.

Re: Would you play… I think there is a degree of realism to this concept. Few supers know exactly what powers they get on the onset. Unless you have something central to the campaign, I think there should be some flexibility in how the powers are assigned. Plus there should be some wiggle room in case the players have new ideas. If you give a PC a multipower with X slots, how will he figure out what all the slots are? It's possible they can have an AP EB and never realize it. How would this be addressed? If it's discovered later in the campaign, why would shaping an AP blast be easier than shapping a Penetrating blast (one was already bought, the other needs to be bought)? I was thinking you build the character as you go, adding powers, reworking the frameworks, etc until you run out of points and come up with a final version. This would satisfy just about everyone because the players have a way to control their character creation with just guidelines from the GM. Example, Every player makes a 150 point normal and the GM runs a short senerio that groups everyone together and gives them their origin. Between sessions, the GM privately tells each player they have 200 points to spend on powers with a particular special effect.

Re: why the lack of..

Re: Would you play… I was in a campaign like that. It didn't last long but that was due to the GM and group dynamics than the campaign nature. Part of the problem was figuring out your powers. If I had to do it myself, I'd make the characters with more flexibility then put 10 points in reserve. For instance I'd make a multipower with 6 slots and only let them "keep" the first 4 they try. (They can't yet shape the other 2 in their mind yet.) The other 10 points are for things I didn't think of.

Re: Transformer's Spark gojira Yeah, after I posted I realized a Transform would do a better job for a spark extractor. I'd make it a Spirit transform since you're pulling the spirit from the body. My last line was a refernce to the short story "Singulary Abyss" in Transformers Legends. Skir, writer for Beast Machines, wrote it and it takes Megatron's spark up the dimensions in Kabbalism to the Matrix/AllSpark. I brought it up because the Hero system also uses the Kabbalistic model for its multiverse structure. It's a good metaphysical story that gives a little more depth to the abstract realms in Ultimatic Mystic. Also since Megatron almost makes it to Crown, the story serves as a model for an evil mage who also has passed through the Veil and into the higher dimensions.

Re: Transformer's Spark I know my Transformers history better than all the powers in the Until Superpowers book. Starscream has a mutant spark so in his unique case I'd give him a multiform between his permenent body and his spark which would be built like a ghost with the possession power (built as Mind Control). For ordinary Transformers, since death is a tramatic experience and tramatic experiences can trigger a "radiation accident" I'd use it to change the chatacter into a ghost to be undone when they get a new body. If you want to include Megatron's spark extractors from Beast Machines, I would use a soul stealing power or Mind Transfer. Apart from that, it's a plot device if you want to take your Cybertronians to the Matrix.

Re: Dyson Sphere (shell) - Dysonica Anyone? Good math Megaplayboy, but that's with a perfectly smooth inside. A dyson sphere would have mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts, oceahs, and so on. So how much of that 28 quad is actually liveable?

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races? If you're going with concepts, the Jurai in Tenchi Muyo fits with elves pretty well. They have a relationship with their Jurai trees. It gives them their special powers and variants of their trees are used in their ships. I don't remember everything but it could be in wikipedia or something. Dwarves could be genetically modified humans for mining asteroids or heavy gravity worlds. I'm planning a halfling-like race for a Star Hero campaign. They are humanoid but half the size of ordinary humans because largest landmass on their homeworld is about half the size of Afirca, the rest are islands. The smaller the landmass, the smaller the animals that evolve there will be. Orcs can have the same type of origin and culture as the Klingons in Star Trek. Hey, why not make them the leaders of an empire with gnolls, trolls, hobgoblins, etc being their subject races.

Normally if your character has someone s/he can contact for information or is owed a favor, you'd pay points for it. But what about the flip side? What happens if a DNPC bought Contact:Your Character at 11-, how is it noted on the character sheet? The oppositte of the Hunted disad is Hunting, a psych lim. So what about here? Is it a -5 point "Owes Mayor a Favor" perk you can buy? If so, what happens when the favor is fulfilled? Does it work like a normal favor and you permentaly "gain" the points?

Re: Seeking Concept Help - Magical Technologist? In my campaign, my character is a technomage. His spells were defined as 1 of 3 themes. 1) Magically enhanced technology (Enchanted cell phone that can make calls to a person's mind, machine-control spells) 2) As logomaster put it, the "mystical resonance" of an everyday object (anti-aging creams that really work, healing duct tape) 3) Spells that bend the laws of physics in precise ways (generating bolts of lightning from Earth's magnetic field, flight via manipulating the gravational constant, disrupting the static electric bond between molecules, creating wormholes) I think the first option would work best because you can build technology-based devices while keeping the mystical bent. Imagine the look on Viper Agents' faces when the street they're standing on becomes an asphalt elemental. (Gives a whole new twist on the phrase, "end of the road".)

Re: Superpowered Worlds