Dr. Anomaly

Honestly? I think life and civilization would go on pretty much as normal. You see, even though this IS a 'cosmic catastrophe' as far as the dwarf galaxy is concerned, it probably won't mean much at all to the individual stars and any planetary systems they have. Generally speaking, the planets in a stable star system are so gravitationally bound to their star that having said star ripped out of its parent galaxy and swallowed by another will mean...squat, if you'll pardon my term of art! Remember that gravity falls off very quickly (inverse square law) and as such gravitational sources/events near to the planet in question have an extremely disporportionate influence on that planet. In other words, a 'catastrophe' like this one probably won't shift planetary orbits or wreck ecosystems. That's too bad if you want space opera -type catastrophe, but good if you are a real-life civilization whose planet is in the middle of this kind of event. Now, I'm not saying there CAN'T be effects...a likely one which springs to mind is that a close encounter with another star (and by close I mean an approach no closer than a light-year) may disturb comets in the cometary halo (or other bodies in that star's Oort Cloud) and send them drifting into the inner system, where they could some day put inhabited planets in peril due to possible collisions, etc. On the other hand, this sort of event doesn't need a galaxy disruption to happen...it's a hazard of living on a planet circling a star that happens to reside in ANY galaxy. It could well be the chances of it happening would be greater during this kind of dog-eat-dog event, but I'm not sure. Cosmology is a hobby of mine, not a profession, and I don't have enough data at hand to make a call on the changes to the likelyhood of this sort of encounter. So...theatrics aside, I'm sorry -- but living in a civilization on such a planet would probably remain the same ho-hum existence it would be if such a thing weren't happening.

Notice the article claims the "dwarf" galaxy is 10,000 times the mass of the Milky Way! If that were true, it wouldn't be OUR galaxy that would be doing the "cannibalizing"! This wouldn't be the first time the popular press had gotten the facts wrong in a space-related article.

The most unplayable concept I ever had from a player was this: An alien gladiator/cop (okay so far, sort of) sentenced to do time on Earth for bucking "the system" in the name of Justice instead of Law (seen that done before). Problems: *Character does not know any Terran language, has no Telepathy or translation device, and does not INTEND to learn an Earth language during the game. ("He's a proud warrior of a proud people. There's no way he'd stoop to speaking any tongue of such a backward, primitive world.") *Character has NO concept of the right/wrong or social customs of any Terran society, but will act by his own code of ethics, law, and morality. ("He's a warrior from a very advanced, old civilization. There's no way he'd let his actions be bound by the primitive belief systems of these backward people.") *Character is an obvious alien with no way to maintain a secret identity -- 7 feet tall, looking rather like the Predator sans mask, outrageous skin color, doesn't wear clothing, only weapons. ("He wouldn't maintain a secret identity -- there's no reason to. Besides, he's a proud warrior -- there's no way he'd hide or conceal his identity. And that's cowardly and dishonorable, anyway.") As near as I can tell, the character would have wandered around dispensing his brand of "justice" without any thought of or worry about the consequences. I couldn't pin the player down on just what this character's concept of "justice" and "right and wrong" would be, either. I explained (at great length) to the player why this character concept would not work. He would not work PERIOD, let alone be able to be a member of a team. After several long moments of intense thought, the player responded: "Okay, I see the problem. What if I made him only 6'10" tall instead of 7" tall?" After I got over my shock at his "solution" to what HE perceived to be "the problem", I just started repeating "No!" for the rest of the evening. That wasn't a day that made my top ten.

Re: Re: ... Yeah...this needs to be scaled back...waaaaay back. As a guideline, may I suggest that you look at what your PCs defenses are? Then decide on one of these: 1) Some damage should get through their defenses all the time, and a LOT of damage on a good roll. In this case, take the average resistant defense of your PCs, divide by 3, and +1 or +2, and you've got the number of dice of KA you need. Example: average PC defense is 10 rPD. You need (10/3 = 3.33d6 +1d6 = 4d6) KA on average to get some Body through all the time. 2) On average probably no Body damage, but a good deal of Stun gets through. On a good roll, some Body gets through. In this case, take the average resistant defense of your PCs, divide by 3, and -1 or -2, and you've got the number of dice of KA you need. Example: average PC defense is 10 rPD. You need (10/3 = 3.33d6 = 3d6(+1) -1d6 = 2d6+1, tweaked to 2d6+2 KA on average to get Stun through all the time but Body only on an above-average roll. 3) Body getting through should be a *rare* event, but some stun getting through is common. In this case, take the average resistant defense of your PCs, divide by 5, and you've got the number of dice of KA you need. Example: average PC defense is 10 rPD. You need (10/5 = 2d6) KA on average to get Stun through all the time but some Body on a good roll. A couple of other important things to keep in mind here: a) Since the attack you describe is a HAND Killing Attack, don't forget that the villain's STR adds to the damage (+5 STR adds +1 to the dice roll total, or +15 STR adds +1d6 to the dice roll). Don't forget to include that in your calculations! You mention the attack is Penetrating. Unless the PCs have Hardened defenses, they're going to take a MINIMUM of 1 Body for EACH DIE in the attack. On a 4d6 attack (your new guesstimate) that means each PC will take a MINIMUM of 4 Body from each successful attack! How much Body do these people have, anyway? The attack being Penetrating completely changes things, including my examples given above. c) If one PC had defenses much higher than the others, he/she may skew the average mentioned above. Take that into account. d) How hard/easy is it for the villain to hit the PCs? You've got to consider how often he's likely to hit someone when you are deciding how balanced a challenge the villain is. e) You haven't told us anything about the villain's defenses, but you did remark that the PCs "don't have much in the way of attacks." Is it even possible for them to take this guy down, realistically? As you can see, there's a lot to consider, and we don't have all your information. A few more details (villain defenses, OCV & DCV, combat levels, ditto for PCs) would make it easier for us to render helpful opinions instead of guesses.

As a GM, I've never had a hard and fast limit on the number of Frameworks a given character can have, and I've never had a problem dealing with / working with a character that had multiple Frameworks. In a great many cases, the multiple Framework approach was the only real way to properly execute the character concept (usually because of point costs). Currently I'm co-GMing a Champions campaign, which means that for literally the first time in over 8 years, I'm getting to *PLAY* Champions as well, every so often (WHEEEE!!) My character is heavily skill-based, and has TWO Variable Power Pools: a Gadget pool (75 active point limit) and a Magic pool (30 active point limit). He's a scientist-sorcerer. So far my only problem (and I knew in advance this would be the case) is that while he's very flexible (with prep time..."Only in a Lab", etc.) his max "punch" doesn't measure up to the max "punch" of the other characters without VPPs. As has been noted, often times multiple Frameworks are *less* efficient. In this case, that's certainly true, but it fits the character concept to a "T", so less efficient it is! For comparison, the other characters in the game include: * a Brick (animated gargoyle with few small magics of his own) * a Powered Armor Wearer (our main ranged combatant, uses a couple of Multipowers) * an Energy Projector (gravity-based TKer, also a ranged combatant, but in a completely different style) * a Multiformer (a nanobot colony that colonized a dead body and can rebuild it at a moment's notice into any form for which they've finalized a "template" -- 4 so far -- and these include an in-your-face hand-to-hand martial artist, a mid-range mentalist with teleportation and healing powers as well, an armored form with good long-range movement, and a scientist "base" form) To date, there's been no "stepping on toes" even when specialities overlap. The scientist form of the Multiformer works VERY well with my scientist-sorcerer -- they compliment each other beautifully. My character can make a device or spell to do just about anything, but can't make it do it as well as the Brick, Armor Wearer, or TKer can do it "natively". Though our number of play sessions has been limited so far, our characters seem to be meshing well and doing a good job of covering one another's weak spots without encroaching on any "personal schtick" territory. This just seems to bear out what I've felt during my years as a Champions GM -- it's not the Powers or Frameworks, it's the players that cause or avoid problems.

Q: What's the cheapest way to get into jail? A: Aw, not THAT flavor of cheese AGAIN!

I've done it that way, too, and if I thought a player NEEDED to purchase a Power to do it because they were using a Power Stunt too often, that's how I'd do it. The main reasoning behind my other suggestion is to let a brick occassionally do this classic 'brick trick' without HAVING to buy a Power to do it.

Hmmm...there's a thought. I've had articles published in magazines before, but it's been a looooong time. Will they take an article whose central idea you've already posted on a discussion board? I know there are some places that won't.

I *did* think about it being abused, but with the notes in the "Power" Skill (if a player uses the same stunt frequently, they must buy it as a seperate Power) I figured that, with a little GM oversight, would curb that problem. Another possibility is that in addition to the other things I already said go into it, you could require that it be performed like a Haymaker (goes off the end of the following Segment). This would give a living foe a chance to break free, or for the foe's henchmen/team-mates/whatever to intervene, and seems a reasonable requirement since the brick would probably have to "wind up" for the throw. Or maybe a brick is at 1/2 DCV when performing the manuever. Also, if the about-to-be-orbited foe tries to break free, remember than any STR the brick is devoting to extending his range WON'T be there for resisting the foe's attempt to break out of the Grab. In any case, by salting the manuever with a few reasonable requirements (salt to your taste as GM) you can let a brick perform this classic "mighty stunt" without it becoming unbalancing. Cheers!

Re: Re: Re: Bricks and Weightlessness Use my proposed system of "use 5 points of effective throwing STR to double distance thrown instead". 13 doublings = x16,000 (the way HERO does it, going 64 - 125 - 250 - etc.). This equates to 65 points of STR being used to double the distance; what remains is used to figure the distance itself. Assuming for argument's sake the baseball weighs about the same as a football, it takes -25 STR to throw one; in other words, increase the brick's STR by 25 when calculating how far he can throw it. Since you need 65 points of STR just to get the proper doubling of distance, that means the brick needs a native STR of 40. Since he still has to have some STR remaining to perform the throw, bump that 10 more points to 50. Most bricks will have a STR of 50. Low Earth Orbital altitude (LEO) is about 60 miles or 90 km. 90 km = 45,000 hexes (approx). Divide 45,000 by 16,000 and you'll find that our brick must be able to throw that baseball a grand total of 2.8 (round up to 3) hexes in order for the doublings suggested to equal LEO altitude. The 10 STR above and beyond what's needed for the doubling should do this nicely, since that's only 20 feet or so, and people who IRL would have less than a 10 STR can throw a baseball that far. So...using my system, any brick with a STR of 50 or greater could throw an object to orbital altitude; how big an object will depend on the amount of STR over 50 a brick has. As noted before, I'd suggest making the brick make a "Power" skill check, with a -1 penalty for each 10 points of STR converted to "doubling the distance". That'd be a -6 penalty in the case being discussed, which doesn't seem unreasonable...surely it takes some skill (and/or practice) to get the angle, etc. just right. That having been said, I feel compelled to note that a baseball tossed to orbital height probably wouldn't actually ACHIEVE orbit; rather, it would hit its apogee and then plummet back to Earth because it doesn't have the velocity to maintain orbit. At least, real-world physics-wise, it wouldn't. Since this is a game based on comic books, you could just as easily say that getting it to that altitude also involves giving it enough velocity to achieve orbit...and I suspect your player would be absolutely thrilled by that! Perhaps best of all from your perspective, it doesn't involve writing up a Power just to do that...it only involves extending a common HERO mechanic (5 active points = doubling of effect) to the distance something can be thrown.

Better yet, fold that sheet of paper into a paper airplane. Choose the right design (configuration of folds) and you'll be AMAZED at how far it will go...and yes, it still has the same mass as the unfolded paper!

Q: What's the VIPER school chant? A: But you said you wanted it!

Q: What do you need a lot of balls to advertise? A: Everything in its place.

Yeah, I remember these...vaugely. I bought mine a looooong time ago. Besides the GM Screen itself, it included (IIRC) a booklet with a summary of the Powers, Advantages, and Limitations...not sure if it had ALL the character creation stuff or just those parts. I seem to remember there was a small misprint in the booklet...Tunneling was left out by mistake. I think. (As I said, it's been a while.) Re: the full-color figures. Basically these are the cut-them-out, fold-them-into-triangles and tape-the-bottom-tabs-together type of things. Recently I seem to recall seeing something on the Web called "Cardboard Heroes" that was very reminiscent of these. As I remember, the stand-ups were of things like cops, civilians, and so on. I don't recall if there were generic heroes or villains or not. These are NOT them (I looked but couldn't find mine; big surprise, it's been like 8 years since I looked at them) but they are laid out much the same:

You could go with that reasoning based on the concept of "Only to Start": you only take the time to "start" the Power when you change slots; after that, you can use it at will.

Q: What do you plan to do to the dilithium crystals in the Klingon's warp drive to sabotage the ship? A: Japanese...definitely Japanese.

Q: So, Ultra Boy Scout, your press agents say you always tell the truth...is that the truth, or a lie? A: That won't fly in Berlin. I mean that literally...it'll never physically get off the ground, but only in Berlin.

Quite right. Despite the popularization of the terms, objects in orbit (like, say, astronauts in the Space Shuttle) are neither weightless nor in a zero-gravity environment. It is more correctly termed a 'microgravity environment.'

That bothered me, too, so this is how I did it: For a character with superhuman strength (IMC that means above 25 STR), first figure out how much "excess" strength they have for the throw. In the case of a 100 STR brick and a football, that'd be about 125 excess. As long as they still have excess STR (i.e. a positive number), they can remove 5 points of "excess" STR from the value used for the throw to get a x2 "distance" modifier (like a Non-Combat Modifier for Movement Powers). Suppose our brick removed 25 "excess" STR from throwing the football; now you'd figure how far he'd throw it using the remaining 100 "excess" STR, then apply a x32 distance modifier to that value. This lets the really high-end bricks do things they SHOULD be able to do, like throwing things "a country mile" or, in the case of small things, into orbit. These days, I would probably add that a brick would have to make a Power Skill check to properly pull it off, with a -1 penalty to the roll for every 5 points of "excess" STR he was attempting to convert into extra distance (or maybe -1 for every 10 points of excess). This has worked well for me; opinions?

Hmmm...overall, I've got to agree with those that say COM is fine as is, though as Zornwil observed, the discussion is worthwhile; just don't expect everyone to automatically jump on the "let's change it" bandwagon. I wouldn't try to monkey with COM for several reasons: 1) In the comic books, most heros are better looking that the average person, but unless it's an extreme case (better represented by Powers like Mind Control), it has no net effect on the flow of the story...i.e., it's more special effect than anything. 2) I as a GM tend to take a character's COM score into account when deciding how NPCs react or when the character makes a PRE-based check. If it's borderline but the character has an above-average COM, I"ll ususally give the positive result to the character anyway, if it's appropriate that a high COM could influence that type of situation. 3) COM is so subjective it's not funny. Pretty much all of the other stats, even PRE, can be rather objectively or universally compared. What would constitute a high COM, though, varies wildly just within human cultures; what happens when you throw alien cultures in as well? That, it could be argued, would make COM all but meaningless. So, if that's what I think, why keep it, let alone charge points for it, if it's (a) more special effect and ( all but meaningless? There's a couple of reasons there, too. 1) If the PC or NPC is going to be better or worse looking than average, a numeric score for comparison helps. As the GM you can be as descriptive as you like (and you should be) but it can really get the point across if you finish up with something like "and when I say stunningly handsome, I mean his COM is around 21 or 22." 2) Player buy-in. What do I mean by that? I'll try to explain. Given how little COM actually affects the game, mechanics-wise, it would be very simple (and probably acceptable) to just do away with the COM stat all together and let the players decide how good-looking their characters are, for no cost whatsoever. The problem here stems from the same thing that led to the old expression "anything free is worth what you pay for it." When a player spends points on something, then that something has MEANING for him...he's allocated part of his precious resources (even if it's only a fraction of 1%) to that thing. It makes it more REAL to him, and makes him feel like having a good-looking character means something in the campaign world, too. That's just psychology at work...the same sort of psychology that was behind *most* rationing in America during WWII. In that case, most rationing wasn't necessary AT ALL; it was done to give the American people at home a feeling of participating in the war, to keep support for it popular after the initial outrage over Pearl Harbor would have begun to lose its edge. Those are my reasons for saying "don't change COM to make it more complicated, but don't just trash it, either." Make sense?

Thanks for the info...poking around a bit I have found that the "live" version linked to on the associated site is evidently still v1, since it has the Brick template & a couple of others as well. I, too, wondered about the decision to do dwarves next; I simply have no clue about it. Are dwarves REALLY so popular with this crowd that their voices drowned out all others?

Q: What's the most unlikely three-way you can imagine? A: Lady's choice...I like that!

Okay, how did you get HeroMachine to do this? (At least, the layout LOOKS like HeroMachine!) I've got the most recent beta version (as I've been a contributor for quite a while now), but there's no pose that resembles this! Or did you use some other source and lay it over a HeroMachine style background? If so, mind sharing the source?

Q: Why are you standing outside in the snow in your underwear? A: The Candy Man can!

Q: Why don't you like the Egg Man? A: On toast, yes...on THAT part of the body, NO!