Intrope

Re: "Neat" Pictures Sweet! I usually only see those on flights (on clouds, around the plane's shadow). I did see a full circle moonbow once--moon dead overhead on a perfectly clear night, it was about 45 degrees from the horizon. Bright as hell, for midnight! Wish I'd had a camera...

Re: The Future of Small Arms For in-station/in-spaceship use: Why not a paintball gun with explosive rounds that are computer-controlled to only detonate on hitting 'valid' targets? That would seem simpler to me than a rocket projectile: if it's done right, the computer has to actively be sure that what it's hitting is safe to blow up--otherwise, it'd just be like hitting it with an ordinary paintball (more or less; the explosive might be stiffer than an ordinary paintball, but that's probably not too serious). And indoors, the loss of range from a paintball gun v. the real thing isn't a big issue. For more lethal combats, I definitely forsee guided projectiles in small arms: this may come about in a couple decades (they'd be guided bullets rather than missiles, though). They already do this for some artillery weapons.

Re: Villianous/Heroic Powers Resurrection as an evil power: Desty Nova from Battle Angel Alita. He did resurrect people (all the time!)--but he did so to use them in all sorts of inhumane experiments, and frequently brought them back in incomplete or modified bodies to this end. (Now that I think about it, for Iron-age games Desty Nova, Demonic Genius would be a great substitute for Teleios, who is rather bland over all). It is pretty hard to have unequivocably good or evil powers (although 'ripping open your own chest to release a horde of demons' is probably one of them).

Re: Elder Worm Reference Collection The sinister truth: Tentacle Porn fetishes are entirely natural, and not perversion of your true nature in any way.

Re: Conversion - Wraith, the Oblivion Duplication as a Disadvantage, perhaps? Then again, I never really 'got' Wraith. (although any game in which the characters start out even more hopeless than Vampire is an achievement of sorts...)

Re: Your Favorite Fantasy Weapon? The krill of Loric, from the Covenant Chronicles. Which is somewhat amusing, since in 6 books (it wasn't in the first volume) we've never know what the krill actually is for, or what it actually does.

Re: Daily Art Findings Not a bad thought (although I rarely visit DC forum), but alas no joy for me. Man, I'm beginning to think I just hallucinated this image! So frustrating...

Re: Daily Art Findings Darn, darn, darn. I've actually looked at every single link in this thread, save only the handful that no longer work--including all of the artist's sites. And not found it. I was hoping that it was one of the dead links, and someone else had saved it. Thanks anyway, guys.

Re: Daily Art Findings This has been a very cool art thread: but now I have a problem. Earlier, I saw a pic on this thread that would be perfect for my new character--and somehow, I didn't save it! It was a picture of a man in a light-colored robe, seated; he was wearing a leather mask (and a wristwatch). Other than the watch, it looked like a fantasy/mountain scene. Did anyone else save that, or could point me to it again? I looked at every link in this thread and found nothing (well, except for tons of cool art--just not that pic) I'm near certain that it was on one of the art boards (ConceptArt, DeviantArt, etc.) and not on an artist website. Many thanks if you can help!

Re: Holy Killer Angels Actually, Holy Slayers is basically the backstory (what there is of it) for the Diablo 2 Assassins. It's a fairly interesting concept, certainly. On Cleric Weapons: The good ones use blunts to avoid bloodshed, the evil ones use blunts 'cause it hurts more and the neutrals just smoke theirs

Re: Need help with the Gods Peace/Spirituality/Enlightenment/Purity would seem like a good god. Also, that would make the Dark and Light gods into pairs: Battle/Goodness/Defense/Generosity/justice v. War/Slaughter/Undead/Disease Healing/ Natural Beauty /love/Agriculture v. Conspiracies/intrigue/spies/plots/insects/serpents Peace/Spirituality/Enlightenment/Purity v. Lies/Deceit/Jokes/tricks/Wickedness/Greed Hope that helps.

Re: Terrible Thoughts -- Simple Concept, Expensive Build Why yes, I do believe that's Menton...and he appears to be bleeding from his eyes! HKA BOECV was actually my first idea, but the resistant mental defense thing would be excessively nasty. Another thought: would it be legal to buy Continuous a second time for a damage sheild, making the damage continuous? If so, BOECV Transform (loss of SAN from disturbing images) would also be a really nasty one. I'd be really unlikely to allow either of these, of course (I might allow the transform, if the 'cure' for the continuous damage was really easy; even so, it pretty much prevent a mentalist from attacking you).

Re: CHAR: Thor. (Marvel Style) I know of an issue where he's got his goats: It's the last issue in which he's transformed (by Loki, natch) into a frog-man, not long after he was scarred during his battle with Hela (this is when he wore a red cloth to hide his face). That issue also features Volstaag and his daughter Hildy freeing him from his frog-man state. Alas, I packed the issue away just last night and can't tell you the number.

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up? In a similar vein, one What-If? (I think it was 'What If Jonah adopted Peter Parker? or some such) offered that Jonah bangs the drum against *all* masked men, and that that's a legacy of his history of activist journalism in his younger years against the KKK. I also recall (perhaps wrongly) that NY has a law against concealing your face, which I believe was an anti-klan measure.

Re: I just thought of an extremely scary relationship. Always figured him to be the peeping tom type myself...

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity? I'm of the opinion that HERO's about as complex as it needs to be, but it isn't as...efficiently complex as it could be. The 'adding damage' thing is a good example of this; it's very complex, but how much does it really add to the system? For me, though, the biggest area where a re-work would improve the efficiecy of the complexity would be to strip out all special effects built into the mechanics. By which I mean things like having several different defense powers (MD, PowD, several powers that grant PD or ED) that are really different special effects. Essentially, the system itself should not divide things into special effect categories; instead, the genre of the campaign should define the special effects and the relative value of them (in addition to saying what kinds of defenses you can buy). For example, take a supers game. In this kind of game, their are lots of physical and energy attacks, so having defenses against one or the other is about equally effecient, and buying defense v. just physical should cost the same as v. just energy. Moreover, it's legal to buy defense against 'energy' as a general catagory. OTOH, a modern semi-realistic game would probably set Energy as being less valuable than physical, since it's much less common in real-world type situations. You'd probably also have to buy specific defenses against individual types of energy (like say an electrical attack) rather than a blanket energy defense (something that's useful against electrical attacks probably won't help againt fire, for instance). In a similar vein, you might have to buy separate defenses for bullets v. hand weapons (although a single object might have both; Kevlar's primarily about bullets, but it does give some protection from being beaten with a club.

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model +20 PRE, Usable by Others, AoE Megascale (whole earth), Incantations, OAF Fish of opportunity. I'd say either: Mind Control - It'd be easy to get +20 on a cat, I'd think (and Krosp, the character in question, doesn't actually suggest that he could give them suicidal orders); if it was No End, he could trivially do it to every cat he meets (has he ever met another cat?). It needs to be telepathic, though. Or Perk: King of all cats Summon, OAF Bulky: Tiger Trap, No concious control, extra time (30 secs)?

Re: The Character Idea Thread You really don't need 30"; of gliding for this (that would let you deploy the 'chute just 30" from the ground and still stop safely, which is rather better than most 'chutes can do). The write-up in FREd (p118 sidebar) has just 6" gliding (and has a real cost of just 2 points).

Re: The Character Idea Thread On Swarmbots: there are really two issues here. First, how do you handle a group of things that can merge, and in so doing become a different, singular being? The answer I use is Multiform, where you buy a multiform power that creates the merged being and then each of the group pays part of this cost (much like a group of heroes can all contribute to a joint base). This would also work for something (like the Borg) where the individual entities are still there, but they also have a joint conciousness; you'd just buy the 'borg-mind' as a duplicate, and spread the cost over all the assimilated beings. Second, the swarmbots can do a partial merge with just a few 'bots, or a more potent form with many 'bots. This sounds like Cumulative to me! So: Multiform: Unite the Swarm, Cumulative (+1/2); and the cost is divided amongst the swarm bots. For easy of play, I'd write out several 'sizes' of merger: say, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 'bot combinations. It'd be very natural to have the Merged form have a limitation like 'BODY damage represents loss of member bots', too.

Re: The Character Idea Thread Here's how I would build Stasis: First, if she can do anything other than stuff things into/out of the stasis she should have a VPP per OddHat. But for the Stuff In/Stuff Out powers: Stuff In: Major Transform (into immobile thing), no range, must have physical control of target throughout transform (transform damage resets if you lose control); Healed by removal from pocket dimension and Extradimensional movement, UAA, must have physical control throught transport, Linked to Major Transform (only takes effect when fully transformed). Stuff Out: Extradimsional movement, UAA, Indirect, Transdimensional (only into pocket dimesions). The idea is that the Stuff In ability both puts the target 'somewhere else' and freezes them into immobility; the Stuff Out power just produces previously stored objects (that haven't changed in the interim). The 'must have physical control' limit captures the idea that she has to 'stuff' them into the pocket; if they resist, she may have to wrestle them into place. If they escape before she succeeds, she has to start all over. The transform just creates a non-handwave power to immobilize the target.

Re: Favorite Marvel 'What If?' Ewww! My head, it's bloating! and my feet seem to be stuck behind the scenery! And my crotch is smaller than Wonder Girl's (wait, that's true in any case )

Re: Favorite Marvel 'What If?' What If...Doctor Doom was a Pediatrician? (it was a one-panel gag, of course). For the more serious ones, I always liked the What If in which Jim Rhodes (when Stark was 'dead' and he became CEO) didn't shoot the Living Laser to Andromeda? That one was interesting, since they actually told it 3 different ways.

Re: Gravitar vs Graviton? Hey, he could have a sidekick named 'Weak Nuclear Force Boy' and (with the help of Theorist-Man) they could be merged into a single entity! (OK, I beat that joke to death. Sorry!)

Re: Mystic Team Vehicle? In another book in the same series, the characters rode around in the fish that swallowed Jonah IIRC--it was invisible and capable of intangibly swimming through ground or air. And had room for lots of passengers! Kawaiii~~! Another idea: a Ford Model T, well-kept and polished. Chugs along at a stately 40 mph. However, it still only takes it about half an hour to get anywhere in the world...For added strangeness, have it take the normal time to get anywhere withing 20 miles (half-hour at 40mph) but then the time drops off as you go further away (so the other side of the world is only 5 minutes, say) Also, given that comic book magicians frequently use all sorts of platonic solids as motifs, you could just have a sphere, tetrahedron or the like as a vehicle. Get in, and it flys off. (Dr. Strange sometimes does something like this, if he has passengers). A Matrix-like hall of doors could work well. For mages with a darker power theme, maybe they can find the hidden entrances to the underworld and get passage along the river styx? Another idea you could poach: In Steven King's Dark Tower series, their are a number of magic doors that can be used to access different places, dimensions, or times. However, many only lead to certain places/times--others are not wholly reliable. And others are guarded. Perhaps the players could gain access to some of these doors, allowing them passage to certain places easily, and some with greater difficulty? Over time, they could learn of more of these doors (perhaps they can't be found magically for some reason?) and make passage pacts with guardians, thus increasing their mobility?

Re: Daily Art Findings QFT is 'Quoted For Truth'