Lightray

*psst* A link to the post(s) that made you think this would be of use. Also, of interest.

94/62 blood pressure, and 44 pulse. I appear to be kickin' old age's hiney!

Or, the variant that occurs in my games: some team members start out with an active dislike of each other that never improves and annoys everyone else so much we finally ask the player to leave. Of course, those are more clichés I don't love, and so fodder for a different thread...

The reformed villain, or the hero-turned-bad. I'm kind of working on the latter in my campaign -- one of the NPC members of the hero team left them to go take over (and reform? maybe) PSI. I'm still pondering how to introduce the former. I'm also quite fond of the legacy hero bit, but haven't had much call to use it yet.

Well, you're in luck - sort of - for their powers. They all had those vague, 80s power sets. Apocalypse had "complete control of his molecules", or somesuch. Selene was a "psychic vampire", and could control inanimate objects? or knew magic? or both? Mr. Sinister... um... not remembering. Gideon could mimic the powers of others. And had green hair. There's Cannonball... Actually, I don't even remember the others. hmm. wikipedia on Externals Nope, still don't remember any of 'em. Sorry.

Are you kidding? I had to micro-print just to fit Cholmondeley Featherstonehaugh onto the line for Character Name. And it still ran off the edge! Well... actually... see, my character? Was a linguist.

I realized last night that I might be a tad bit out of practice with Call of Cthulu when I actually had my Investigator -- Cholmondeley Featherstonehaugh -- "just skim through" the copy of the Pnakotic Manuscripts we'd recovered, to check our information. It wasn't until the GM's eyes lit up and he asked me for a SAN Check that I realized how long it'd been since I'd played CoC...

Each punch uses the full END cost -- STR + HA. In the example, that'd be 5 END (1 from 15 STR, 4 from 45 active pt HA). If he's using all 5 shots, that's 25 END.

You've basically described a power that instantly undoes the effects of whatever power has just affected you: if you're hurt, it heals all the damage; it you're healed, it hurts you back to where you had been. That's all a Special Effect. The power is your powers don't affect me. But Desolidification, 0 END , Persistant, Always On, Fully Invisible, Cannot Pass Through Solid Objects. Then purchase Affects Material World for your STR and any other powers/attacks. When you're hit by an effect, you ignore it (unless it's Affects Desolidified), and you tell everyone "my power just instantly countered that effect".

Yeah. I once had a power armor character that the same thing came up with. We were fighting the Ultimates, and I'd somehow ended up facing Plasmoid -- who was shrugging of my energy blasts like nothing. So I picked up a telephone pole and swatted him. The GM and everyone else had a moment of this: "What's your STR?" asks the GM. "Um. 50?" says me. "Why don't you ever use that?!?" everyone else shouts. it costs END. my energy blast is 0 END... My character didn't get a re-write, but I did learn my lesson. In my current campaign I ruthlessly enforce niche protection. When I laid the high-STR smackdown on Plasmoid, I'd suddenly trampled all over the team brick's schtick. He was a little miffed. So now, the Martial Artist does not have more DEF or STR than the Brick in my game, and the Brick does not have more DCV than the Martial Artist -- no matter how they whine. They whine more if another PC beats them at "what they do".

Well. That was certainly judgmental. Not very "Christian". Also: rude. And on that, I won't entertain any rebuttals.

Unfortunately, it was something I had in my Gaming File, cut-and-pasted from a long-lost thread on RPG.net (darn you, missing RPG.net Search function!). I don't even remember who the original poster was, other than that he was very knowledgable on swords and weapons. Here's the bit (along with a few other famous sword tidbits):

One of the players in my game wanted an angelic PC, but decided that Christian angels were too overplayed... so he went with a Zoroastrian angel: Fire Angel This necessitated some quick reading up on Zoroastrianism on both our parts. I think Fire Angel would be referred to as a yazad actually. So far, I've taken the Vertigo approach of having a vague Higher Power that is supreme, but which allows for lesser powers and gods and such. Fortunately, Fire Angel's fall left him unable to appreciate the full extent of what he once knew (since he's stuck down among the mortals now), so I don't have to nail down all the sticky metaphysics.

Obviously, if you are playing strictly by the rules, when you buy off that "Costs Endurance" limitation on a power in your EC that usually does not cost endurance, then you have to take it out of the EC. If it's still drained, etc. along with the EC, you take a -1/4 or -0 Limitation on it. If you're not playing strictly by the rules, then you do whatever your GM and group agrees is logical.

What's his word of power? "Ecrmssbvcigr!" seems a bit of a mouthful...

Nah, I've played super-intelligent characters (it's my "thing", apparently). All you have to do is be smarter than the GM. It's not easy, but it's doable if you can think on your toes. I once so thoroughly foiled a GM's pet villain (fire-character; I had the fire department turn their hoses on her and hose her out of the sky) that after I left the campaign he made my PC an NPC foil to his other PCs. "You are going to do this. Don't bother resisting; I've already anticipated every action you might take, and prepared an appropriate counter for it." In Champions, a combination of having lots and lots of high Skills, many Skill Levels, and "out-of-the-box" thinking should get you by. If you take any action other than "I charge up and punch him", you're already looking like a genius hero, really. If you take some time to do some research before engaging in battle, plan your attack, and keep an eye out for resources you might not realize you have (e.g., firetrucks with high-pressure hoses), it should be doable. Now, if your GM is the type who'll retroactively change a scenario so that your clever plans fail, well then, not much can help you there.

I actually have two "alternate Earth guy" PCs in my game. One is a guest-player character who's a legacy hero from a years-defunct campaign. The other one was intended to be an NPC; she'd been featured in a cross-time adventure, and when I had her pop up in regular continuity, one of the players called dibs and snagged her as a backup PC. She actually multiforms between various alternate selves (Roman Earth self, Nazi Earth self, Soviet Earth self, etc.). What I'd like to see is either the Proactive Hero, or the Heroic Hero. I'm tired of mopey layabouts who wait for something interesting to be dropped into their laps -- and are then only interested in nothing more than the fight.

Oh, they're just in geek mode. They accept the reality of the gravity-defying bazoom-plate, now they just need to fanwank and explanation. perhaps "fanwank" wasn't the right word to use there... Same thing happens on just about every Internet discussion involving a sci-fi where someone points out, for example, that X-Wings make "whoooosh" noises in outer space. whooosh!

Excellent opportunity to mention Death Tribble's latest Storn-commission-bought-for-the-board, who ended up being a Hindu-themed superheroine: The idea for the character came from here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=622447&postcount=39 (where you'll see why I remembered, but it's a praiseworthy thing Death Tribble's done nonetheless)