Lightray

*psst*

Lord Liaden deserves more rep.

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!

I have seen an interview where he says that there will be two more books' date=' another prequel and the last book of the series.[/quote']

Hm, based on this news I'm dubious. Perhaps the prognosis isn't as bad as it sounded...

You shoot and your shot goes straight through Dr. Badness - he's just a hologram' date=' which was concealing the captive Ms. DNPC, who is now seriously injured.[/quote']

I say this from bitter experience: those guys never have DNPCs. They might have Code Vs. Killing or Protective Of Innocents. If you force them to. And then it's never, ever "Total" or "Strong".

 

That is another campaign cliché.

 

Some team members starting out with an active dislike of each other that gradually turns into trust and respect.

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.

Is his full name Cholmondeley St John Featherstonehaugh? I have been looking for a way to use this name for so long....

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!

That's why you pay to be illiterate in different languages.

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...

... Better yet' date=' an invisible composite bow! {kidding}[/quote']

There's a Liefeld character who had a bow, that Liefeld was apparently not skilled enough to draw a bowstring, so it was some gravity-field bow or something. A friend of mine showed me one of Liefeld's pics of it once.

 

Once.

 

So just step slowly away from the invisible Liefeld bow idea, Storn. We'll dispatch a bomb squad to dispose of that.

 

Anyway, are those composite bows with frickin' lasers on their heads?

I have so many ideas for spells' date=' I should have a VPP. It's the big thing I want to check with the GM about. Fortunately I have experience in VPPs with another character so I won't be abusive.[/quote']

I suggest that you tell the GM you won't use VPP spells that you haven't pre-statted and had him vet beforehand.

 

Aaand, bringing this back to the topic: I wish I had players that could play a VPP character, without the 20-minute soul-searching in the middle of every adventure, hemming and hawing on what VPP powers to select. Sheesh.

 

Actually, I can't complain too much. I generally make the characters up to the player's specs -- and the last time someone added a character he carefully considered what archetypes were missing. He asked for Speedster or Gadgeteer suggestions, and when he chose to take "Veloz", I actually got a complicated backstory with lots of plot hooks, to boot.

... On the other hand' date=' you'd have the problem of being under-used, becoming an energy projecter with a mystic slant. That is what is happening to my own supermage. I want to focus his attention more on magic, but the GM has been slow to come around.[/quote']

That is curious; my own campaign essentially began as a Mystic Masters type, so there's no shortage of supermages -- for me, it's differentiating them that's the problem.

 

However, I think you should talk to your GM if you're expected to be the "transport" for x-tra-D adventures. In many cases, GMs will allow PCs to pool points to purchase a team base or vehicle, for example. I'd suggest that he allow you to do the same for some means of extradimensional movement. I allow PCs in my game to purchase Equipment (= "artifacts") in this way, so they can have an assortment of Mystic Orbs, Magic Mirrors, Gates, and whatnot to get around. Should take the pressure off of your own points.

 

As for focusing your character's attention more on magic... do you have a Multipower, or a VPP? Best ways we've found to have mages that can whip up a new spell relatively quickly. As a supermage, you shouldn't be just an energy projector -- you should be the energy projector will all the Advantages you'd ever need. Slots with Affects Desolidified, BOECV, Variable Special Effects, and the like aren't going to be available to most energy projectors. If you add in some Adjustment Powers you should start to look different from those other characters in no time.

 

My other suggestion would be to define what type of magic your supermage uses, if you haven't. Generic Dr. Strange / Dr. Fate type supermagic is rather bland. But a Hermetic hagiomancer is really going to stand out. Not "oh, another ankh-bolt", but "yikes, he's calling upon St. Michael's sword!"

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".

... We're fighting a batch of agents' date=' and we go on so long he goes through ALL the weapons, running them all out of ammo. Sensing victory, the agents close up with him...and he proceeds to beat the snot out of them with his [b']65 Strength.[/b] I was laughing, my character was flabbergasted, Caliber got a re-write.

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".

*snip rant*

Well. That was certainly judgmental. Not very "Christian".

Also: rude. And on that, I won't entertain any rebuttals.

Do you have any links to info on the shrine with Durandal? I'd like to know more about that.

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):

ORLANDO'S was called Durindana or Durindan, which once belonged to Hector, and is said to be still preserved at Rocamadour, in France.

 

It is said that El Cid Campeador (spanish knight/mercenary around the time of the Reconquista that managed to get a very well known romance written about him; you may have seen the Charlton Heston movie) had 2 swords, one by the name of Tizona and other named Colada.

Not clear about the meaning of the name (Tizona means something like "dirtied with ashes" and Colada something like "cleaned", there is some theory about it being a word play about how one was covered in blood and the other was used to clean his owner honor, with blood of course).

 

About Durandal: there an impressive place in the Pyrénées called "la brèche de Roland" - a titanic cut, dozen of meters deep. It was supposedly made by Roland when he tried to break Durandal against rocks, to prevent it to be taken by the Sarrazins. He failed, because Durandal was near indestructible.

 

Got the names of the swords of Turpin and Olivier : it was respectively Almace and Hauteclaire.

I wouldn't mind a player having Durendal (from The Song of Roland)' date=' though.[/quote']

Ob nothing in particular, Durandal is supposidly in a shrine in Rocamadeur, France. I had Morgan le Fey arrange for it to be stolen in my game recently.

 

The Spear of Longinus has a long and storied history in comics, though. It's the Spear of Destiny -- which played a big part in the JSA backstory; it was the artifact that Hitler had which kept superheroes from interfering in WWII.

 

Even beyond the Christian apocrypha it appears in, it also shows up in Arthurian legend as a bleeding lance, or as a fiery lance, which often attacks of its own volition knights who are unworthy. Certainly something that could be adapted to Champions, I'd think. (particularly if it's wielder became 'unworthy'...)

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.

He was meant for a Teen Champions game:

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

They're even proactive half the time. All I have to do is say "It's X:00 on Xday. What are you doing?" Half the time if they're not doing secret ID stuff' date=' they're following up on unresolved leads from prior adventures. [/quote']

Oh, sure, rub it in why don't ya.

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.

really folks. I was told to do a lot of skin on this one. Just the nature of the character.

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)