Killer Shrike

Hi Steve. Quick ? relating to the Protects Carried Items option of FF. Im sort of confused by the ability as it seems like a cheap way to get a limited UBO, but if it is used Im confused as to when another person is 'carried' and when they are not 'carried' for purposes of figuring if the FF protects them. Q: If a character has FF w/ Protects Carried Items and Grabs another person, is that person protected by the FF vs the Grabbers own attacks? Example, say ForceField Boy, who has the Protects Carried ability, grabs an opponent and squeezes an opponent. Does the FF apply vs his own grab? Q: What if FF Boy has Extra Limbs too, and basically grabs the opponent with one set of arms and then on his next action pummels the grabed character with his spare limbs; does the FF apply to the grabbed character in this circumstance? Q: What if FF Boy's teammates take pot shots at the grabbed character; does the FF protect vs thier attacks?

If that doesnt work, quadruple the # of Multiforms, and just take the same form 4 times, take 1 Body Regen Regrow Lost Limbs, Ressurect, not while active. Then, youve got 4 forms to switch around. So long as all of them dont get screwed up, you should be able to rotate through them.

Dont have my FREd w/ me, but my knee jerk reaction is to buy Multiform on Continuing Charges. When the current Charge is messed up, deactivate the Charge (switch back at will) and then turn the power back on next Phase, viola, new body. Buy enough continuing charges to handle reasonable circumstances, say 3 1 Day Continuing Charges.

Are you familiar with how Defenses linked to Absorption works? The Absorption Mechanic mimics the 'overloaded' description given. As the Absorption is capped off, the screen cant take it anymore and all damage gets thru until its had time to bleed off the excees energy its absorbed/stopped. Thus effectively it complies with your statement, "It's charge decreases until it runs out of power and the shield goes down". Mechanically speaking, when it has taken too much damage, it will temporarily shut down. As the screen bleeds off excess energy, the shield comes on line again, but if more damage is taken soon thereafter, its capacity will be reached faster and it will shut down again. Ignore the FF getting better. Feeding the FF from the Absorbtions just serves to keep the power self contained and usable by anyone without alteration and makes it cheaper to get enough FF to cover the max roll possible on the Absorb (without just paying for another 14 DEF outright). Since the FF is based on the die roll for the applicable Absorbtion, the actual PD or ED count is immaterial. It only represents the ceiling of what it can POSSIBLY stop, but its still going to average around 17.5 DEF per segment because thats the average of the 5d6 of absorbtion. Thus having more FF than the average possible roll is clearly only relevant in the case of an above average roll, because then the FF can match the Absorbption roll. The most it will ever stop in a segment is 30 PD 30 ED because that is the absolute maximum you can roll on 5d6, and thats not likely to happen very often either. So, if you had a FF like this, it would: *stop a variable amount of damage each segment, *take a segment or two to hit peak performance (warming up/conforming around the body from the device), *be prone to overloading from Massive Damage or automatic weapons fire, *not instantly reset between uses, taking about 1 to 2 minutes to cool down to its starting state again, *be circumventable by an adept HtH opponent (the Slow Blade Pierces The Shield)

Thats not necessarily true at all. Multiform is a mechanic whereby a character may have multiple physically different forms, but only 1 exists at a time. Its just a game mechanic and thats all. If you want to have distinctly different personalities in your different forms, you can do that too, but you dont have to; its a character concept decision.

Hey, the idea of Summoning a new Mechanon gave me this idea on how to ultimately defeat Mechanon! Tweak the lab program to create multiples (via an Aid, can add Adders of course), so that instead of 1 Mechanon we have 256 Mechanons! Then, with the judicious application of Bradley's Bromide, Mechanon would never accomplish anything worthwhile ever again! "If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee--that will do them in." -- Bradley's Bromide

Ours is the age which is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to. Howard Mumford Jones A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. John Gall

Actually, no it isnt. You are assuming that if you got through the screen at all you would kill the wearer in 1 hit, but that is actually very difficult to do in practice. Even a 2d6 KA wont kill or even necessarily incapacitate an average man on an average roll. The damage is random, and other mitigating factors apply, like Rolling w/ the Punch, other forms of resistant defense, such as body armor, and if using them Hit Locations. However, with 1 successful grab at -2OCV you could deprive the character of his primary means of defense, which can mean certain death in a campaign where attacks are so powerful that people need to wear shields capable of bouncing 30 killing damage. (almost enough to kill the average man twice over).

If you make it OAF, it can be grabbed at a -2OCV either way. The FF would offer no protection vs this and would not make it any more difficult than taking away any other Focus, which is logically inconsistent. So, if you make this forcescreen ability, and you put it in an OAF, then an enemy could fight you and try to get through massive defenses in order to hurt you OR just reach out and take it directly off at a mere -2OCV. Hmm.....I wonder which they will choose to do. Force Fields do not form barriers, they have no actual mass or volume or surface tension. If you want a 'solid field' effect, then you need Force Wall, and Force Wall is much much more expensive than FF, and when it is penetrated at all it collapses. Logically, OIF is the better way to go IMO. The Focus could still be attacked directly at -2 OCV, but would get the benefit of the FF it generates, and couldnt be grabbed and taken away in combat.

Take Immunity with 'Gradual Effect' or 'Extra Time' and handle as thier Immune System will fight off the effects of the toxin/poison but they do suffer from it initially. This requires a little bit of GMs discretion to pro rate the effects of the toxin/poison as the Immunity kicks in by increments if using Gradual Effect (which is normally applied to attack powers), but is probably the closest thing to what you are trying for without some major hoop jumping. Major doses of poisons/toxins would hit them as hard as everyone else initially before thier Immune system can purge the poison/toxin. IIRC something similar happened to Wolvie vs. The Brood; he was initially infected, but his mutant immune system purged the Brood spoor from his system. Of course, there are other power combinations that could be used to mimic that as well, but assuming the Bood spore was a biotoxin or a retrovirus of some sort, Immunity with Gradual Effect or Extra Time woul cover it. Alternately, buy the Immunities as is; treat the 'feels some of the effects' as part of its Special Effect. In the final analysis, they are still Immune to the toxin/poison.

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I would think that might be called Finnish, but Im probably wrong

Hello Steve; Q: If one were to reverse engineer Universal Translator and buy Detect Speech and Detect Text and apply Transmit to both for 2pts each, would the possessor of these detects be able to speak/write any language in more than a 'crude fashion'? If so, would they be fluent and would they have an accent? Q: If they applied Sense to both Detects, would they need to make any roll to do this? Q: Would they have to apply Discriminatory to both Detects to know things like what language they were speaking? If yes, what other benefits would Discriminatory (and by extention Analyze) provide? Q: Am I correct in assuming that these Detects would use the Simulated Sense rules to 'piggyback' over Hearing/Speach in most cases? And therefore qualify for the -1/4 Simulates Two Sense Groups lim? Q: Are there any other considerations to take into account relating to doing this? Thanx! (By the way, sorry for accidentally setting off the Mechanon Self Destruct thing -- it wasnt my intention to question your design decisions; I was just seeking clarification on how the construct was intended to work. )

It is chain wide. They are also getting rid of Warhammer.

Damage Reduction: 1 Damage Reduction 1/-: Damage Resistance (1 PD/1 ED), Hardened (+1/4) 2 Damage Reduction 2/-: Damage Resistance (2 PD/2 ED), Hardened (+1/4) 4 Damage Reduction 3/-: Damage Resistance (3 PD/3 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (4 Active Points) 5 Damage Reduction 4/-: Damage Resistance (4 PD/4 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (5 Active Points) Total Damage Reduction Cost: 5 at 20th level Uncanny Dodge Cost Skill 2 Uncanny Dodge: +1 vs. Traps 4 Uncanny Dodge: +2 vs. Traps 6 Uncanny Dodge: +3 vs. Traps 8 Uncanny Dodge: +4 vs. Traps 10 Uncanny Dodge (Can't be Flanked): +4 with DCV (20 Active Points); Only vs Multiple Attackers (-1) 10 Uncanny Dodge (Dex Bonus to AC): Defense Maneuver: I-IV Total Uncanny Dodge Cost: 28 at 20th level Fast Movement: Running +2" (8" total), Reduced Endurance (0 END, Affects Base; +1/2) (12 Active Points) Total Fast Movement Cost: 12 at 1st level

Rage 6/Day, no longer winded Cost Power END Rage, all slots: , 6 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each (+1/4); Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 15 1) +15 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (26 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 14 2) +10 CON (25 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 11 3) +8 BODY (20 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 16 4) +8 EGO (20 Active Points) 15 5) +3 with HTH Combat (19 Active Points) -9 6) -2 with DCV (-12 Active Points) Powers Cost: 62

Rage 5/Day Cost Power END Rage, all slots: , 5 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each (+1/4); Side Effects (-5 STR, -5 Dex, -3" Run for 1 Minute after Charge elapses), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 11 1) +15 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (26 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 11 2) +10 CON (25 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 9 3) +8 BODY (20 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 11 4) +8 EGO (20 Active Points) 11 5) +3 with HTH Combat (19 Active Points) -7 6) -2 with DCV (-12 Active Points) Powers Cost: 46

Greater Rage Cost Power END Rage, all slots: , 4 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each (+0); Side Effects (-5 STR, -5 Dex, -3" Run for 1 Minute after Charge elapses), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 10 1) +15 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (22 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 9 2) +10 CON (20 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 7 3) +8 BODY (16 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 9 4) +8 EGO (16 Active Points) 8 5) +3 with HTH Combat (15 Active Points) -6 6) -2 with DCV (-10 Active Points) Powers Cost: 37

Rage 4/Day Cost Power END Rage, all slots: , 4 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each (+0); Side Effects (-5 STR, -5 Dex, -3" Run for 1 Minute after Charge elapses), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 7 1) +10 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 2) +5 CON (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 3) +5 BODY (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 6 4) +5 EGO (10 Active Points) 6 5) +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points) -6 6) -2 with DCV (-10 Active Points) Powers Cost: 21

Rage 3/Day Cost Power END Rage, all slots: Side Effects (-5 STR, -5 Dex, -3" Run for 1 Minute after Charge elapses), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), 3 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each (-1/4), Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 6 1) +10 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 2) +5 CON (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 3) +5 BODY (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 5 4) +5 EGO (10 Active Points) 5 5) +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points) -5 6) -2 with DCV (-10 Active Points) Powers Cost: 19

Rage 2/Day Cost Power END Rage, all slots: Side Effects (-5 STR, -5 Dex, -3" Run for 1 Minute after Charge elapses), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), 2 Continuing Charges lasting 5 Minutes each (-1/2), Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 5 1) +10 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 2) +5 CON (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 3) +5 BODY (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 4) +5 EGO (10 Active Points) 4 5) +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points) -4 6) -2 with DCV (-10 Active Points) Powers Cost: 17

Rage 1/Day Cost Power END Rage, all slots: 1 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Minute each (-1), Side Effects (-5 STR, -5 Dex, -3" Run for 1 Minute after Charge elapses), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), Cant use any Full Phase actions or anything requiring Concentration (-1/4) 5 1) +10 STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (15 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 3 2) +5 CON (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 3 3) +5 BODY (10 Active Points); No Figured Characteristics (-1/2) 4 4) +5 EGO (10 Active Points) 4 5) +2 with HTH Combat (10 Active Points) -4 6) -2 with DCV (-10 Active Points) Powers Cost: 15