TaxiMan

Re: AVLD vs. NND What's the dif? NNDs are more effective for the cost. NNDs don't do BODY, can't remember if that's true for AVLD.

Re: Mollusk Man Build Transform: sand into pearl. Running: 0" Swimming: 0" Flying: 0" Tunneling: 0" Teleport: 0" Clinging: +40 STR

Re: Rules Mechanic: A Six Second Turn In the superhero realm, I like it. It makes combat simpler, which is a major positive move. In Fantasy games, it might result in more uniformity than some might desire. Still, overall I like the idea.

Re: Range and AoE with Images Just read a book where a mage confused an enemy army by making the Moon appear to be in a different place. That screwed up their night-time navigation (ok, "orienteering") and led them to the wrong place. How would you do this? I'm thinking (a) awesome Image ( Mental Illusion © CE: -50 to Navigation (d) Mind Control "You believe the Moon is 90 degrees west of it's real position". Did I miss a really neat approach or get one wrong?

Re: Timestop Difficulties So the target's timeframe slows down to near zero? The Universe ages and dies before his next heartbeat? Awesome power. Perhaps the alteration of one's timeframe this way is similar to changing dimensions (similar, but not really). Maybe the PC doesn't know that's what he's doing, doesn't really matter since the power works as expected. Now, something exists in that altered "dimension" or senses effects in that frame of reference. It may be angry or curious or hungry or jealous - in any event, it's key to this place (Earth, our timeframe) is the use of the Timestop power. The first symptoms of The Thing From Out Of Time (TTFOOT) might be that victims of the power get a much better breakout roll. Let everyone haymaker their Ego rolls. That's because they are terrified by TTFOOT. They break out of the power, but are still eliminated from the fight because they are insane with fear or flee (not from the heroes, but from everything - i.e. they never stop fleeing). That should make the player and his PC interested in this new phenomenon. As TTFOOT draws "nearer", the Timestop power becomes unreliable (Activation), and occasionally fails in strange and sometimes even spectacular ways (Side Effects). You can leave it here for many sessions, since this is a backstory building towards a very interesting confrontation. The player is denied some of his uber-power, but is the star of a backstory and upcoming story arc. It might balance out, especially if you work with the guy some beforehand. Just make sure the culmination of the story is memorable when the heroes face TTFOOT and its world-destroying consequences. Oh - and after that, the Timestop power won't work the same as before, but something else improves. Kinda like a minor "radiation accident" (and get the player's buy in first!).

Re: Speed Chart dynamism I had a similar idea to the OP. It was based on the assumption that everyone holds their initial action. Then ignore that, and start at phase 12. Here's how it works: Give every player and villain (ignore mooks) a marker - let's say it's a small bean bag. Start on "phase 12" and play like normal. If anyone wants to do something out of turn, they can surrender their bean bag (toss it into a bowl in the center of the table) and do something immediately. That includes Abort type actions. If you don't have a bean bag, you must act on your Phases but can still Abort. The drawback is that you can't "jump in" when you see an opportunity. You can get your bean bag back by skipping your next Phase. That seems very close to the current rules, with a little tweaking to make it easy. [if you want, give everyone two markers - one for the held action, and one purely defensive for Aborts. If you use both, you can't act your next phase and must recover your Abort marker.]

Re: Normal-proofing your Bricks? By the way, Grailknight, where in San Antonio do you live? I'm on the west side near Sea World. I've never noticed anyone else from San Antonio on the boards.

Re: Normal-proofing your Bricks? Very nice way to set the tone for a campaign! I might increase the "Normal" Disad. value, but it's the concept that counts. What do you mean by "no defender exploits"?

Re: Flavor Power for Brick Flavor power? How about Shapeshift - Taste sense group. I can think of many places to take this, but in the interests of good taste, I'll leave it at that.

Re: Immortality and progressive diseases It's tough on the poor immortal these days. Back in the old days we didn't have so many diseases. Back in the old days, immortals just lived forever. That meant they didn't get stuff like this "cancer" or "Alzheimer's" - heck, we didn't even know those were diseases! 'Course, they could get fat but now that's being called a disease... Seems like in the future when everything bad is called a disease there won't be any reason to be immortal.

Re: VPP, Shapeshift and You Back in the day, I made a shapeshifter with the basic Shapeshift Power, then linked multipowers for movement and attack powers. The senses and defenses were outside a mulitpower (I wanted them all the time). It worked well and was cheaper than a VPP. The separate multipowers could have been combined, but it was easy to see how the powers worked that way.

Re: Cost END only to Activate In some cases it isn't a limitation, like the OP implies. In Champions campaigns, I've only seen it rarely and it usually comes with x10 END to model something that wipes you out to start but can be maintained.

Re: Thoughts on Multiform At character creation, it's possible to "limit" a MF character by asking if Limitations and Disadvantages are really limiting. If the character has a way around these, reduce it's value. For instance, if Dr. Banner has Psych Lim: Won't Kill and Hulk doesn't, the player isn't as limited as is usually assumed. Got a world-ending threat that really, really needs to be killed? Rage up and let Hulk take care of it! Not worth the "regular" value. So discount it. Similarly, if one form has a fire form with "Not in water" on the powers and has another water form with "Not in fire / heat" - they might be -0 Limitations. For the Powers side, reduced values for Limitations will reign in some abuse. For Disadvantages, remind the player that you don't have to rack up enough to get the max. In a 250 + 100 point game, the MF player might be running 275-300 point characters...

Re: Absolutely Indestructible? The Real Weapon lim surely makes a Focus breakable, but the lack of Real Weapon doesn't mean it's indestructible. That's up to you. Real Weapon means a lot of other stuff, like "must be maintained" or "fouled if muddy" if appropriate.

Re: Absolutely Indestructible? Focus: +1 COM, Invisible Power Effects.

Re: Absolutely Indestructible? Power Skill: Indestructible Focus.

Re: Absolutely Indestructible? Aw, spoilsport. If a soldier can get an indestructible shield, why not a football star and his mystical SuperBowl XXVII game ball? I'd bet villains would show up just to get nailed by a super-Troy Aikman. They'd probably bring autograph books.

Re: Great Goggle-Eyed Ninjas! Being attacked from behind reduces your DCV. That is different from "surprise", so it presumably reflects the fact that our arms don't help protect our back very well. The Defense Maneuvers skill allows you to move so that you don't allow someone to get behind you like that. 360-degree senses are an excellent justification for developing these skills, however!

Re: Absolutely Indestructible? "Bricks! Pay attention! The next 60 seconds could change your life!" "Tired of wailing on SuperEvilBadGuy with that fragile lightpost or even manhole cover? Having trouble coming up with a hardened bank vault door at the right time? Finding nuclear submarines too bulky and (let's face it) too heavy for some of those pesky energy blasters? "Well wait no more! With the patented GM-approved Indestructible Focus , you can push those haymakers until the cows come home! No more folded girders and no more splintered trees! The Indestructible Focus can be used over and over and over again! "Look at how it dishes out 24d6! Just wipe off the dust and gore and it's ready for action! "How much would you expect to pay for something like this? 40cp? 60cp? Even 100cp in a Cosmic Campaign?? If you act now, it can be yours for the low, low price of only 1cp! But wait - there's more! "Having trouble taking half the damage from a Move Through? Want to ignore that 1/3 damage of a Move By? The Indestructible Focus can provide affordable Armor for just that purpose! "Did I say affordable? The Indestructible Focus can even save you points! Need an extra 20 STR for those truly ridiculous displays of power? You can cut the cost of that extra STR in half - or even more! "GM giving you a hard time blocking a 30' diameter boulder? Constantly hitting you with lasers from 40" away? Now you can afford to Missile Deflect those boulders and laugh at ranged attacks wearing these new stylish Indestructible Focus Wrist Bracers! There is literally no end to the uses for an Indestructible Focus ! And that's not all! "If you act now, you can order your Indestructible Focus in any shape you want! Always wanted your own Oscar? You got it! Feel comfortable holding a Louisville Slugger - of course you do! It's a timeless classic, and it's available now! Tired of those unbalanced, non-aerodynamic penalties you get throwing a tractor-trailer? Dish out more damage and get rid of those annoying ranged penalties with our new Football Focus ! "Admit it. This is the answer you've been waiting for. Why wait any longer? Act now! Operators are standing by to take your order!"

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? Re: the original post - I admit the "problem" is a minor one (and have from the beginning). I can subtract one, except if I roll a "1". Few seem to admit that the rules are a little bit wonky for no purpose. Interesting. Anyway, I've said my piece. Thanks for the discussion! And I got a neat new idea from BNakagawa, so that was good.

Re: Lucky, Lucky, Lucky! I like Luck characters too, but prefer to have their powers spelled out more. There are some good threads covering that. Have some Luck-based Powers, add in 3d6+ Luck for flavor, and viola! - a nice, balanced, in-the-player's-control Luck character.

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? Just for fun, here's the distribution of your proposal. It's pretty boring-looking (for a chart). The end result significantly changes the effect of STUN from Killing attacks. Instead of 17% (1/6) chance of a STUN multiple of 5, you get an 11% chance of a 5 or even a 6! Since that's the core of the STUN lotto, we've reduced the chance of hitting the jackpot by a third - but added in a slight chance (3%, 1/36) of a MegaBucks jackpot! Interesting... I think I like it. It's simple, keeps the flavor of Killing attacks, allows for fantastic results but drops the frequency enough to shift munchkins back to Normal attacks. You've got my vote.

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? This is a much more significant change to the rules than I'm proposing - it actually changes things when my proposal is more like fixing a typo. However,... Very nice idea! Totally hoses the abhorrent STUN lotto problem, and very easy to implement! Fix a problem in a very easy way ... rep!

Re: Change the STUN Multiple Rule? SSgt Baloo - I want the +1 STUN multiple to work this way, but it doesn't. That's what the thread is about. Since currently 1d6-1 = [1,1,2,3,4,5], the +1 STUN multiple results in [2,2,3,4,5,6]. It's a hassle (vs. just rolling 1d6 & accepting what it shows), and it's almost pointless because the low multiple hardly ever does anything. To fix the useless hassle, I proposed letting the 1d6-1 die roll be mathmatically that, i.e. [0,1,2,3,4,5]. You wouldn't do any STUN on a poor roll except for two things: 1. There is a rule that STUN >= BODY. If the attack does BODY, it'll do some STUN. 2. On a poor roll, you probably didn't do any STUN anyway! So why the complexity? Changing this seems to be a win-win choice. No game play change, and simplified rules.

Re: WWYCD - little girls and diplomatic troubles Torque is a shapechanging mentalist, base gender (indeed species) unknown. First, T would soothe the girl's memories. "He" would then locate a powerful person in the town who has a child. T would then replace said child (hiding the real kid safely in a pleasant trance) and arrange to be alone with the cave man and the victim's father using mild mental illusions. After a time, they would believe they participated in disgusting acts and T, still acting as the child of the VIP, would escape and dramatically inform on the men. After firing up the VIP and the townspeople into a homicidal mob, T (still as the VIP's child) would run away in a hysterical, frenzied state. Later, the VIP would find his child calm and happy, with memories of pleasant fantasies covering the last few hours. T will make sure that all believe it best to leave the child unaware of what "really" happened. Whatever the mob does is fine by T.