Rubric

Re: Help with Character Acroynym Bio-Robotic Universal Turing Entity Or, if it's not "Bio"logical at all, then maybe just a Basic or Benign Robotic Universal Turing Entity. If it is partly biological, you could also substitute "unified" in place of universal. Other suggestions for "u": Unmanned, Unique, or Utility / Utilitarian.

Re: Luck Options Both are great suggestions. There also need to be some limits on how much a given roll can be changed by. You don't want the player adding all 35 points to a Killing Attack damage roll. "Wow, I didn't think that .22 caliber pistol would kill Superman..." If the player is willing to use significant self-restraint, it won't be a problem. Otherwise, the GM is going to have to really clamp down, and possibly disallow it altogether.

Re: Luck Options As written, the rules aren't clear as to whether the Lucky player can affect only his own rolls, or ALL rolls. In my unrevised book, one sentence says he can change "his" rolls, and another sentence just says he can change "rolls". It's also not clear how "range" affects it. Presumeably, you can only affect things that are within the standard points/inches range, but what does that mean? What is the location of a "roll"? However, I think a major use for this variant of luck is to reduce attack rolls or damage rolls of enemies. So, that capability should be included in the power at its base level (no advantages). I might do it like this: Base level: the player can alter any dice that he personally rolls, and he can alter dice of any roll that directly affects him (an attack roll or damge roll against his character). Some advantage: the player can alter any roll, even if it doesn't directly affect him. Some limitation: the player can only change his own dice, not those rolled by enemies, even if the enemy is targetting the player. I'm not sure how much the advantage should be. A literal reading of the "Useable on Others" rule makes it sound like you need +1 Useable as Attack AND +1/2 ranged. That seems excessive to me, but any lower advantage seems to imply that the person you're using it on gets to control it, and that's not the effect we're looking for. Obviously the villian is not going to voluntarily reduce his attack roll. Also it's not the way the base power works. I would probably just go with a net +1, instead of 1.5. That includes "ranged", and I would rule that the target OR the attacker (but not both) needs to be in range. I also noticed that the Useable as Attack description says that you must define a common set of circumstances that negates the attack -- so that could be the "defense" you were looking for. As for whether I would use the optional rule -- I would certainly try it. But, I would probably tell the player ahead of time that we may have to nerf his character if it doesn't work out. The problem with it is that it limits the GM, because everything has to be a dice roll or else the player will feel cheated. Sometimes the GM just wants to say "Okay, that attack missed" (or whatever), but the Lucky player is going to want to know how much it missed by, etc. I'd still try it though, especially if the overall character concept is interesting.

Re: Answers & Questions What happens if you play baseball wearing panty hose? (Not that I know -- it's just what I heard.) A: The easy way

Re: 10 Most Amazing Temples in the World Awesome! The one on the side of a mountain is amazing -- hard to believe it's real. It almost looks computer-generated.... Also, I can't get the link to load. Are there really ten, or are there only seven amazing temples?

Re: My First Game of Champions! Oh, and then what's this about "inches"? Once I finally figured out that Energy Blast is actually your Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, I couldn't quite understand why you have to stand so close.... Let's see, my 60 point energy blast has a range of... 60 inches? That's like 5 feet....

Re: My First Game of Champions! Ha ha, yes. I remember when I first got the book, I flipped through the powers looking for "Fireball". When I didn't find it, I thought "Okay, this game is stupid." Then I figured they have to have Lightning Bolt, because Storm sometimes shoots lightning bolts. *Flip* *Flip* *Flip* Let's see.... No lightning bolt??! Dumbest game ever....

Re: My First Game of Champions! Interesting subject. Here are a few things I remember from early games. This would be late 1981, or early 1982. I was young teenager at the time. I remember fishing loose change out of my pocket at a convention, in order to come up with the full 13 dollars it was going to cost. One of the guys at the booth said "Now that's a dedicated gamer", as I literally started counting pennies. Anyway: 1. My younger brother made a character called "The Acrobat", who was blind. He was basically a Daredevil knock off. At one point, he wanted to jump off a building and land on a bad guy that was walking past. Obviously that's a move-through, but at the time I was completely stumped as to how to handle it. I couldn't even figure out the Endurance cost. My brother wanted it to be zero endurance, since he was basically just "falling off a building", but I insisted on charging him 1 endurance. He was so upset by that 1 endurance that he nearly quit playing. 2. One of my friends made a character called "Power Fist", who was a knock-off of Colossus, except that he got his powers from special gloves that he wore. We played a short scenario where he had to stop a bank robbery. He picked up one of the robbers, and wanted to throw him at the other bank robber. Again, I was completely baffled as to how to handle that. I don't remember what happened, but I think I had him roll the damage one time, and then I divided it among the two robbers. 3. The first big game I ran was the Viper's Nest scenario that came with the original game. This was the first time I had more than one player. The game ran pretty smoothly until one of the heroes tried to grab Brick and teleport with him. The player said he wanted to leave Brick in the non-dimensional space between the teleport locations. I was like, "Ummm, yeah, that should work. Okay Brick is gone." I also recently took a look at some of the early characters I made. Oh My Gawd!!! Captain Gravity, indeed. I won't go into it, since that's basically a different subject. But let's just say most of the characters I made were just X-men with different names.

Re: TV: Kid Nation Yeah, true. I liked it, though, and plan on watching it. The only thing that really bugged me -- when the girl won the gold star, they just happened to have a camera crew at her mom's house....

Re: Change Environment: Personal Immunity or Envirnomental Movement I don't really see it as a problem. Any 60 point power can deal with agents, whether it's a 6d6 area effect blast to stun them, or just a 30 point force field so they can't hurt you. To me, this CE doesn't seem all that powerful vs. supers. Well, I agree that EM:Ice and great mass are rare, and I can't really use the Desolid angle. It's clearly more than 1/4 though. I need to add something else to get it up to 1/2. For clarity, let me just break it out as two separate limitations: -1/4: (Only affects targets standing on the ground) -- from the book -1/4: (Doesn't affect targets with EM:Ice, great mass, or _____ ). Note: I also have an additional -1/4 applied to the whole power framework based on increasing the endurance cost (sometimes massively increasing it) when it's too dry and there is no nearby water source. Other possible limitations to fill in the above blank: 1. No range? I can't remember if CE has range by default, but I assume it does. Still, a 16" radius makes this a relatively insignificant limitation, so it wouldn't get a whole -1/4 to itself. Doesn't really fit my concept however, although the concept is still subject to change. 2. OCV penalty only applies to HtH attacks 3. Doesn't affect characters with ice sliding/running powers (even if they don't have EM:Ice, which they probably should have). In fact, I could see a GM actually increasing the movement rate of an ice slider, or at least reducing his endurance cost. 4. Destroyed by heat-based attacks? 5. what else? Or am I just trying to get free points back by "defining" natural properties of ice?

Re: Change Environment: Personal Immunity or Envirnomental Movement On further reflection, I think the Desolid power probably includes innate immunity to this type of Change Environment. Does anyone disagree? I've never seen a ghost slip on ice, and I've never seen a cloud of vapor get stuck in mud, for example. If you were the GM, would you make a Desolid character pay extra points (like some variant of Flight) in order to ignore penalties for ground-based CE's and/or similar natural effects? Conversely, would you allow the player with the CE to take a limitation that it doesn't work on Desolids? Also, is the above set of limitations still worth -1/2 even without the Desolid part?

Re: Change Environment: Personal Immunity or Envirnomental Movement Interesting. It's funny you mention clinging, because I'm also thinking about how to throw the "sheet of ice" onto a vertical surface to affect clinging and climbing. CE can reduce climbing skill, but not Clinging. It's an ability that would be so rarely useful, that I wouldn't want to pay many points for it. Maybe it should be a power trick with the CE. Ahh, nice idea. That might be worth reducing the radius by a notch in order to squeeze in the extra five points. The only problem is that my newly-purchased HeroDesigner is going to have conniptions if I try to do that.

Re: Change Environment: Personal Immunity or Envirnomental Movement Yes, that's included already. I just didn't mention it. I believe the CE example in the book includes a -1/4 limitation for "Only affects targets standing on the ground." Selective and/or Useable by others is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. My character can create a sheet of ice on the ground -- that's it. There's no reason I should have the ability to control who can walk on it and who can't. It's up to others (teammates or villians) to provide their own capability to walk on it.

Re: Change Environment: Personal Immunity or Envirnomental Movement Thanks for the reply. That solves the falling down problem. Is this a rule, or is it your interpretation as GM? I don't have my book at the moment, although I don't recall reading anything about an automatic Dex roll upon entering. No, I don't have the running/sliding ability, as I'm trying not to be TOO much of a Marvel Iceman ripoff. However, if you would give me free EM for a Running power, why not for a Personal Immunity to my CE? Hmmm, yes that seems to be the main issue. It's essentially an area-effect power, and the general rule is that you need PI to avoid those. The problem is that the special effects of the PI are identical to the special effects of the Environmental Movement. Well, the justification is that it is regular ice, not special mutant ice or alien ice or something. Possible reasons why others could walk on it: (1) experience with working on ice, (2) cleats or spikes on your feet, (3) extraordinary mass that breaks the ice with each step, etc.

Context: I'm working on an ice-based character who uses Change Environment [CE] to create a sheet of ice. The book (5E unrevised) is inconsistent about the effects of ice -- under the CE power description, it provides an example of ice that causes a movement penalty and requires a dex roll or breakfall roll whenever a character moves. In the rules section on the environment, it says ice may cause an OCV penalty. Both examples seem reasonable. My CE will basically combine those effects. I'll use -3" movement, -4 to Dex skills, and -1 or -2 to OCV. (I don't see any non-hackish way to create a "fall down" effect -- I guess that will be GM discretion.) If this seems like a stiffer penalty than regular ice, then think of it as "rough ice" or "uneven ice". That is, it appears with slopes and crests that make it extremely treacherous to walk on it, let alone perform any sort of kung fu kick. So now, it would be pretty silly for me to be falling down all the time due to my own power. The first question is: do I need to pay for Personal Immunity (+1/4), or do I need Environmental Movement (1 to 4 points)? The CE is about 60 active points, because it has a large radius and several penalties. That means PI will cost about 12 points, and will have the unfortunate side-effect of increasing the END cost by 1. 12 points + extra END seems like a lot to me, especially for an ability that grants me NO BENEFIT on regular (natural) ice. Environmental Movement, on the other hand, will let me walk on regular ice with no penalty, so why not this ice? Would you say I need both of these abilities if I want to walk on ALL ice? Second question: how do other characters avoid my sheet of ice? Can teammates spend a couple experience points on Environmental Movement so the ice doesn't affect them? (And I guess the follow up question is, if they can do it, why can't I?)