Ki-rin

Re: Building a "Superhuman Scanalyzer" ...and evidently his ability to carry and transport bears includes things merely named after bears as well...

Re: Normal Human 1= We do not know if the Super Soldier Serum + the Vita-Rays (People keep forgetting about these. They were at least as important as the SSS.) which caused Steve to grow his new body changed his DNA or his gamete producing body parts. Since the SSS stays in Steve's body and is constantly being renewed, Steve will always have SSS in his endocrine system, bloodstream, even his bone marrow, making sure that every cell produced for those functions is to Super Soldier standards. (Without the constant renewing supply of SSS in his body, Steve would have frozen to death instead of going into suspended animation in 1945.) But we have no idea what the SSS + vita-rays did to his DNA, testes, or sperm. His children could be like him before Project Rebirth. He could be =sterile= for all we know (Chemo and Radiation therapy are both known to have causing sterility as a risk factor.) IMHO, given the number of women he's been with over the years, and the lack of children from those multiple unions, my bet is that Steve Rogers was made sterile by Project Rebirth. 2= Project Rebirth did not change what a human being could =do=. It simply made a human being perform at the absolute theoretical peak of human performance. Steve's bones are still bone. His muscles are still muscle. With the exception of the regenerating supply of SSS in his body, every molecule and cell in his body is still recognizably human if examined. (This point has been made multiple times over the years in the primary source material.) This is not so of an alien, a mutant, The Hulk, Spiderman, The FF, etc. All of these examples have been shown to have non baseline human DNA.

Re: Normal Human Yep. That's all that I've been saying. But he =is= still intrinsically human. Unlike the FF or the X-Men or The Hulk or Spiderman or etc. Let alone demigods like The Silver Surfer or gods like Thor. We =will= evolve at some point to do what Cap can do. Without a major change to our genome, we are =never= evolving to do what those other examples can do. ...and that's the fundamental difference.

Re: Regneration and Starvation/Dehydration effects

Re: Captain American Build 350 pts Not quite. Although I stand partially corrected. First Peter tried going to toe to toe with Steve and was totally outclassed ("I've landed like one blow in the last 10 secs which he blocked with that shield while he's hit me like what, three times? I can't predict his combinations. He doesn't make combinations. It's all just one continuous move for him. He's forgotten more about hand to hand combat than I'm ever going to learn.") Peter then decides to use a different strategy ("I've got to attack from range. Use my superior agility and strength against him".) ..and then The Shield becomes a ranged attack problem ("...and then he throws It. The symbol of the whole freaking _country_ comes right at me...") that Peter (barely) dodges for awhile then manages to web to a wall thinking he's out maneuvered Steve... ...but Steve has set Peter up; smoothly transitioning from the use of The Shield as a ranged weapon to that of a distraction to allow him to close to HtH again. Steve then lands the by far hardest blow of the entire battle. Peter is dazed. ...and the "Iron Spider" suit attacks Steve almost on its own and scratches Steve's face because he doesn't have The Shield to block with at the moment. Both are doing a Post 12 REC at this point when Steve realizes a= He's needed elsewhere b= The "Iron Spider" suit is a big enough problem that he's unprepared for that he's going to have to up the force levels considerably if the fight continues. Steve breaks off the fight with Peter to go help the rescue/escape attempt in progress. Yep. But he did not keep it and turn it over to Tony Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D as he should have either. QED Peter did not think anyone had the right to take or keep Cap's shield from Cap.

Re: "revised" hit location chart? IMHO, you are being overly focused on a specific, particularly since a subset of the posters to this thread have spent considerable type trying to refute the idea that location 13 is the groin rather than the more nebulous "vitals'. But fine, I'll play by your rules. Trust me when I say that on any occasion I've been present no one finds it even the -slightest- bit funny to watch anyone, man or women, clutching themselves moaning on the ground in dry heaves for 5-10 minutes after being nailed in the groin. The initial hit only engenders humor when the consequences are omitted, ignored, or glossed over. There isn't anything funny about a grovelling animal sounding like it's about to die from sheer pain. Unless you are a sadist.

Re: "revised" hit location chart? Hyper-man, We're talking about whether both sexes can feel similiar amounts of blindingly incapacitating pain from a hit to approximately the same region of the body. It does not matter why. All I'm saying is that the evidence on the matter says unequivocally "yes". ...and I'm NOT taking a stand one way or the other as to whether the pain involved is a warning about "the body's reproductive capacity is in extreme danger". I am not a doctor. But I can't see how damage to that area is good for the working parts of =either= sex.

Re: Captain America Build 350 pts or You don't think The Incredible "I can lift puny mountain!" Hulk hits with as much force as a Tank round?!? The statements are not contradictory. Cap has been Knocked Back considerably without being damaged or hurt from hits taken by The Shield on occasion. Then he usually immediately gets back up and re-engages. As JmOz has correctly noted, if Cap has the opportunity to appropriately prepare for a hit, The Shield has been known to provide practically unlimited Knockback Resistance.

Re: Captain America Build 350 pts ...and part of that is modelling him as accurately as possible given the CP budget.

Re: "revised" hit location chart? You made the statement that people seeing other people horribly injured or made to feel intense pain would not be taken seriously and would be treated as merely fodder for jokes. I provided a refuting counter example.

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

Re: Captain America Build 350 pts A character "the fans are gonna go insane" in favor of is also called "a $large $repeating $revenue stream"... Canon has also shown plenty of ways to beat Steve. 1= Get him when he is not in Hero ID. Without the Armor or (especially!) The Shield, he is a lot more vulnerable. Sharon Carter killed him at point blank range with a pistol. 2= Get at him via threats that only superhuman/mutant physiology can handle. Steve gets smoke inhalation in burning buildings. Steve can't fly. Steve has to breathe. Even Steve's shield isn't going to protect him from Knockback if an artillery shell or tank round or ... hits it. Steve can't survive having a skyscraper fall on him (-around- him due to a Luck roll possibly. But not -on- him). Etc. He's tough. But fundamentally he's human. 3= Get at him through innocents, loved ones, DNPCs, and other non-combat means. The Red Skull has shown himself to be an absolute master of this technique; even making the US government Steve's enemy at one point. 4= ...and then there's the ever present plot angst of being someone who literally does not belong or fit in the society he presently is in. No family. No surviving friends from his time period. No one who really understands him. A stranger in a strange land ~100 years after his birth.

Re: Captain America Build 350 pts Another quick thought about The Shield. When thrown by Steve, it's velocity is in the 120-240mph range. It's consistently been shown to be faster than an arrow fired by a bow.

Re: Captain American Build 350 pts As another poster has noted, they fought in Civil War. Steve could've won easily (he completely outpredicted every move Peter made and had always had counters in place for everything Peter tried. ...And =nothing= was getting through The Shield), but gave up the chance to pound Peter into paste to try and talk him into seeing the error of his ways. This resulted in Peter getting an opportunity to use the custom ranged attack built into his "Iron Spider" armor. The consequence of which was that Cap realized Peter's new costume was a tactical element he had not yet analyzed, which meant either upping the threat level to the point where Peter was likely to be seriously hurt, ...or retreating. Since Steve's goal was not hurting Peter, but rather convincing him that he was being misguided/misled, Steve used The Shield as a missile weapon to provide cover and retreated. ...and Peter managed to capture it with his webs. Only to leave it webbed to a wall for Steve to later find because he did not think he or anyone else had the right to keep The Shield from Steve. *Folks who think that raw physical superiority means that Spidey, or anyone else for that matter, could beat Cap HtH are forgetting that Cap has fought the likes of The Hulk, gods like Ares and Hercules, and robots like Ultron to a standstill when armed with The Shield. (In HERO terms, it's an ungodly Unbreakable Unique OIF VPP with Armor + Damage Reduction 75% + EB + Force Field + KAw/ max STUNx + RKAw/ max STUNx + MD/R Usable On Others + ... as I said NOTHING gets through The Shield) 1= Spidey can't cling to camera's or other small objects (he's dropped/lost cameras he was carrying for instance), so logical consistency says he should not be able to cling to The Shield either. 2= Spidey has not shown the ability to cling to objects being actively used. Let alone those being actively used against him. 3= NO ONE is ever faking out Cap in HtH. Feints just don't work against Steve. 4= Canonical material consistently shows that if you are strong enough to try and Grab/Throw Steve, he has the combat skills to redirect your grab into an attack by him. ("X" Grabs The Shield. Gets Haymakered two legged kick to the face/vitals/knees/whatever. "X" has included The Hulk and Ultron.) Or he justs let you Throw him and uses his absurd Acrobatics and Breakfall rolls.

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

Re: "revised" hit location chart? According to some female Black Belts I know... Getting nailed in the groin hurts at least as much for women as for men, it's just that the "target area" is a bit harder to hit. I'm sure this can be tested and verified by experiment, but having witnessed it on multiple occasions, I =REALLY= do not recommend it. As to the value of location 13. Tons of official HG material over the course of 20+ years has said that location 13 is the lower abdomen including the groin. It's even reasonable since the general area is filled with critical structures like the top of the femoral artery that will cause you to Bleed Out =very= fast if damaged. http://mnemocine.net/2008/11/03/femoral-artery-mnemonic-deep-branches/ In addition, there are the consequences of damage to the pelvis or ball and socket joint area of the hip. (Picture a mace coming in from the side into locale 13 and basically shattering everything it encounters.) Talk to someone who has fallen and broken their hip if you want a realistic feel about how incapacitating damage to the skeleton in the area of location 13 is. My suggestion about "groin shot jokes" is to encourage your players to Act Appropriately. The problem is no different than the overuse of the "smut field" when gaming. There are videos on the net of location 13 damage happening in real time. Watching a few of those will stifle any tendency to view it as humorous very quickly. ...and of course there are times when some humor, even of this type, is appropriate. People are there to have fun after all. It's the overdoing of it or inappropriate use of it that's a problem.

Re: Normal Human Bloodstone, (warning! science geek stuff ahead) The average human has muscles that turn ~20-33% of the energy used into useful work. The rest is turned into =heat=. Elite athletes have been found with muscle tissue that is 50% efficient. The estimate is that the limit is ~66% efficiency. Such increases in efficiency are a "double whammy" for improving athletic performance. 1= more work gets done with the limited supply of energy in the body. D'uh. 2= less obvious, =the amount of overheating the body has to deal with decreases=. If Steve Rogers were ITRW, he'd very likely be someone where =all= of his muscles worked at or very close to the postulated 66% efficiency limit. Now figure out how much work an average 20% efficient human of normal muscle mass can do compared to a guy with 3-4x as much muscle which is 66% efficient to boot. Similar extreme improvements have also been found in some of the bone and nerve tissue of some elite athletes. Now picture a guy whose whole body has all of these improvements in a body of perfect proportions. =That's= Steve Rogers.

Re: Normal Human That's humans =now=. What we can do now has nothing to do with what we might be able to ultimately do given evolution. Not correct. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Cheetah-Land-Speed-Record-Sarah-Sets-New-100m-Record-In-Cincinnati/Article/200909215379001 So the world's record for Cheetah's in the 100m is 6.13 secs and I know from other sources that 70-75mph is =normal= for a cheetah. ...and NOTHING canon suggests Steve Rogers could match a cheetah in these regards. So someone at Marvel screwed up. They are allowed to make mistakes too. Not according to the sports docs and biologists I've talked to. The human frame (skeleton and joints) =is= capable of achieving and surviving these levels of performance. But we have not yet evolved the muscle and energy efficiency to pull it off. Yep on both counts and thanks for the correction. Steve and Taskie have faced each other one on one and proven Taskie can't handle Cap's shield as well as Steve can. You are correct. I had forgotten about the OHotMU mistake. ..and I thought it was some nonstandard form of iron called "elemental iron" or somesuch?

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong Don't know much about this character. How did he operate in combat?

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong ??? I have never "pretended DC's don't exist". But like CSL's and other mechanics that improve the efficiency and flexibility of a character along certain lines, they have to be applied in a play balanced fashion. There have been plenty of broken or munchkin builds discussed over the years that involve overuse of things like CSLs and DCs to the point of being abusive.

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong I stopped using hard AP caps in 4E. You've evidently not seen many characters where their offensive and defense capabilities are significantly asymmetric.

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong Let's take these in order please. Low STR Brick and high STR MA were mentioned first. The high STR EP is sort of a side note to the main discussion about Bricks and MA archetypes. I promise to examine everything with equal thoroughness, but's let's please get the examples more germane to the main sub topic before we deal with tangential concepts?

Re: Normal Human ------------- Captain America is probably the greatest symbol of Truth, Justice, and the American Way to ever live. He was the pinnacle of what a soldier could be - an inherently good man who fought for what was right and did what he could to make the world a better place. When you think of justice and a symbol of America, the first person to pop into mind is him-the living symbol of America and freedom. Many heroes not only admire for what Captain America stands for, but look up to him as a role model.. He was on of the greatest patriots Earth had ever known. The world as been saved countless times by Cap's leadership, courage, and pure will. He was one of the greatest combatants, strategists, leaders, and most motivating man most had ever seen. But Captain America, Steve Rogers was a man, too, and this is one of the most important things to remember as you look upon his legacy. He did not have powers, only discipline and hard work. He was not an alien and he was not given powers he didn't want. Cap was a man-a man who fought for what was right. And it lasted like that, for a long time. He never backed down from any challenge, or stopped fighting for what he thought was right. Captain America Origin and Golden Age On July 4, 1917, a baby was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to an Irish immigrant woman named Sarah Rogers. Her husband, Joseph, was elated they had a new baby boy. They named him Steven Grant Rogers. Steven was always a courageous kid-he tried new things as a toddler all the time. It's notable to mention that he grew up while World War 1 was raging across Europe, giving him a little experience with war. He wasn't very athletic, and was quiet and introverted. Although he would eventually grow to 6'2, he was scrawny and weak-always last in athletic games (much like one Peter Parker that would be born much later before a radioactive spider bite). He possessed a fierce loyalty, a fighting spirit, and a good heart inside him, though-one the world would see later. He had no future in athletics, so he majored in fine arts and was a particularly good artist-he specialized in illustration. His life changed, though, when Nazi forces swept across Europe, starting World War II. The Japanese, who were the Nazi's allies, bombed the U.S in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor, so young Steve Rogers, out of loyalty to his country and his patriotic duty, tried to enlist to fight on the front line against Axis forces. He was immediately rejected do to being physically frailty, classified a 4-F. Steve was puny-he didn't get anywhere near passing the physical exam to join. Although he wanted with all his heart to serve him country, there was nothing he could do. He made an impression on the Army recruiters and trainers, though-he desperately wanted to join-it was his dream to fight for America. An officer was looking for test subjects for an experimental procedure, part of a top-secret defense plan only known of by less then twelve men. It was Operation: Rebirth. The plan was to create physically superior soldiers with a new serum-the Super-Soldier Formula. If it worked, it would make our soldiers super soldiers-he-men who had the grace, strength, speed, and nerve of two Olympic athletes. After a tough process to choose the lucky subject, Rogers was chosen to be the first one who the Super-Soldier Formula was administered to. One Dr. Abraham Erskine, Dr. Erskine, developed the process and administered it to Rogers. He was injected with the Super-Soldier formula and ate some, and then was hit by Vita-Rays that activate and stabilize the chemicals in his system. The process worked perfectly. Steve Rogers' system and body was boosted to the maximum in human efficiency. He also virtually tripled in weight as tens of millions of healthy cells were created almost instantaneously. His muscles and reflexes improved to the peak that a human's could be at. Steve marveled-he had become a specimen of human power as all weakness and deficiencies drained from his body. Just then, a Nazi spy burst in with a gun. He cried "Hail Hitler" in German and shot Erskine through the head. Abraham Erskine died-and he had committed the Super-Soldier serum's ingredients, along with much of the procedure, to memory. The secret died with him-Steve Rogers would be the only super soldier made. He chased after the Nazi spy and broke his neck, killing him. He then vowed to use his power to fight the enemies of America and be a symbol of freedom. ------------ So if you see a story where Steve Rogers is running at 60mph for more than a minute, either a= biologists have proven that the human body is capable of doing this or b= the story is part of the few plotlines where giving Steve true superhuman abilities is explored. Steve has always rejected these upon detailed reflection or experiment. IMC, Steve moves at SPD 5 and has 13" run (45-50mph sprint IIRC), can leap ~2x his own height straight up, "cling and jerk" a motorcycle and then use it as a missile weapon, etc. The improvements of his origin to his neural system made him Ambi-Dexterous and gave him Perfect Timing, Bump of Direction, Rapid Healing, and a few other Talents. His physical stats and Talents allow him to do things with that Adamantium shield that no one else has ever been able to duplicate. (although some have come close)

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong Which is why I don't have hard DC caps. Interesting idea. Damn straight. But when someone wants to play an 80 STR Hulk clone in a campaign where the human MA tend strongly to top out at 25 STR, I call that "significantly higher final DCs" under most circumstances... Tell me more about the "devastating attacks"? How did they work and what were their SFX?

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong