KA.

Re: Freezing the Time On the XDM/Time Stop controversy, I do have one suggestion that might help a bit . . . If all you want to do is affect your own 'personal' time, like travelling to the future or something like that, then XDM to 'a dimension where time passes faster' would seem to work fine. But, if you want to freeze other people in time, by travelling to another dimension where time doesn't flow for them, but it does for you, wouldn't you have to take them to that dimension with you? In other words, instead of buying: Extra-Dimensional Movement (Single Point in Time), Position Shift Cost: 45 Points 4 END/Use Wouldn't it make more sense to have to buy: Extra-Dimensional Movement (Single Point in Time), Position Shift, Usable As Attack (+1), Area Of Effect (9" Radius; +1) Cost: 135 Points 13 END/Use I mean, even if I allow for the existence of the "time is stopped for you but not for me" dimension, shouldn't I have to take you there for you to be frozen in time? Otherwise it is like saying I can make you cold and wet by throwing myself into a lake. If I pull you into the lake too, and I have some way of staying warm and dry, then it makes sense. Otherwise . . . It also does a nice job of balancing out the Point Cost and End Cost a little. KA.

Re: When a Fan loves a Comic . . . I just wanted to thank everyone for the kind words, and the Rep. Both are equally appreciated. KA.

Re: Freezing the Time The Souljourner suggested pretty much exactly what I was going to say. There is no reason to have to physically stop the world when you can just move so fast that you get to act when they don't. Since you probably don't want this to be overwhelmingly powerful, the fact that someone could hold their action past Segment 12 and act on Segment 1 (If there DEX was higher than your character) could just allow for that rare chance of someone 'breaking free' or whatever. Since comics and fiction are filled with characters who pull off miraculous stunts like this, it really isn't out of genre if the time stop isn't 100% foolproof. Another cheap way to do it is to buy a fairly high SPD and a really high PRE. There is some character (The Foreigner from Marvel ? ) who has a power where it seems like he freezes time and disappears, but actually he sort of 'stuns' people for a moment and then just leaves while they are unaware. You could explain this as a sort of high level PRE Attack. He causes them to lose a Phase, and by the time they recover he has already done what he was going to do. KA.

Re: Help with Serial Killer story Let me begin with a warning. This will change the tone of your campaign. Once you cross the line into having a serial killer play a major role in your campaign, your players are not ever going to see the game world the same way again. You may have had an NPC or two die in the past, but a serial killer story is a different thing. For one thing, as soon as they realize that a serial killer is operating, everyone that dies after that is 'their fault' for not solving it. If not in reality, at least in their minds. Which means that common genre assumptions will no longer work in your campaign. The villain who 'always escapes at the end of the fight', will have to be obsessively chased and brought in, because who knows what he might be capable of if he is allowed to go free. Heroes who let themselves be captured as part of a story arc, may be very hesitant to do it, because for all they know they will end up dead, not just stuffed into a Giant Ice Cream Cone to await rescue. Everything is going to have a harder edge to it. You may find them more inclined to do things like torture underlings to find the Big Boss, because the Big Boss may be planning to kill off half the city. Not that you intend to do all these horrible things. It is just how they are going to feel. If they play any sort of heroes, having innocents die horrible deaths because of their failure to solve the crime is going to hurt, and they will act differently in later sessions because of it. I am not telling you not to do it, I am just telling you not to do it too lightly. As i3ullseye said, I have some pretty good ideas, but they will work a lot better if the players don't see them, so if you would prefer a PM, let me know. KA.

With apologies to Percy Sledge, (and intended as satire) When a fan loves a comic Can't keep his mind on nothin' else He'll trade his whole pull list For the back issue he found. If the art's bad, he can't see it, They can do no wrong Turn his back on his best friend If he puts it down When a Fan loves a comic Spend his very last dime Trying to hold on to what he needs He'll give up his own apartment And sleep on his Mom's couch If they just brought out A Limited Series When a fan loves a comic He gives up everything He's got Trying to keep up With all the cross-overs Marvel, please no more X-mags When a fan loves a comic Deep down in his soul A new team can bring him misery They might screw up how they look Or, worst of all Crap on the continuity Yes, when a fan loves a comic I know exactly how he feels Cause baby, baby, baby, I'm a fan. When a fan loves a comic . . . Sorry, I thought of this the other day, and could not help sharing it. KA.

Re: Personal Immunity...to What exactly? I think the reason this is getting so much static is that it isn't exactly what Personal Immunity is supposed to do, even though it is a technically book-legal option. So how about this? Since it it a kind of odd use of Personal Immunity, and it won't be used that often, how about just making a +1/4 Custom Advantage called something like "SFX Immunity", that says "Only works when attacked by the exact same spell". I think the problem is that people are having a hard time wrapping their head around the idea that you basically want these guys to be able to designate "Personal Immunity" as one of their advantages, in case they are attacked by a member of their own school. It isn't that it is illegal, it is just a little odd. I do have a question, that you may have already answered. (I just don't have time to reread the whole thread, and I don't want to miss it by skimming) Since these are spells with Variable advantage, how close does the match have to be? It sounds a bit like "Rock Paper Scissors" If I am using an 8d6 Fire Energy Blast w/ Armor Piercing and you have your slot allotted to an 8d6 Fire Energy Blast with Personal Immunity, does that work? Or do you have to have yours allotted to 8d6 Fire Energy Blast w/ Armor Piercing and Personal Immunity? Or do both of us have to have a slot allotted to 8d6 Fire Energy Blast w/ Armor Piercing and Personal Immunity, for it to work? Sorry if this was already explained, just trying to get things clear. KA.

Re: help me! DT_Jesus, Sean is right, as usual, but I do have a few comments and questions, as usual. Hero is based on the idea of "reasoning from effect". So the first thing to think about when you are building a power is: "What do I want it to do?" When you say that you want to turn objects or people into a liquid or gas, what actual effect are you looking for? Are you trying to damage them? Are you trying to make it so that they can't move? Are you trying to make it so that they can't attack anything? Something like "Desolidification w/ the Useable as Attack Advantage" might work well too. You could change them to a liquid or gassy form, and they would not be able to attack anything unless they had some attacks bought with "Affects Solid". Just a thought. KA.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel It's like deja vu all over again. Just kidding, I know you were posting yours as I was posting mine. Just a funny coincidence. KA.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel Little Annie. She is a blond, blue-eyed, cute as a button, 6 year old girl. She lives in the Hotel with her Mother. But there isn't anyone in the hotel who can ever remember seeing her Mother. She is very smart and seems to know all about the adult world, which is rather unnerving. She is never shocked or surprised by anything. If you knock on the door of her room, she will say: "Mommy is resting." or "Mommy is busy." But she will never let anyone in, and there is a really heavy chain on the door, so pushing past her is not an option. She seems to run all the errands for her Mother. You can see her bringing in groceries. Paying the hotel bill. Playing cards with the adults in the lounge. You just never see her Mother. Is her Mother dead? Did Annie kill her? Is her Mother some undead horror? Is Annie actually the woman who originally rented the room, returned to her youth by: Black Magic? Vampirism? Futuristic Technology gone awry? Is Annie some type of Monster? Automaton? Evil Living Doll? A few disturbing things about Annie: She always looks exactly the same. Same clothes, same hair. (How does she wash them? Who cuts her hair?) Never a cut, a bruise, a smudge. And she doesn't seem to have grown an inch since . . . How long has she been living here anyway? KA.

Re: Personal Immunity...to What exactly? I'm not dead set against it, I just wouldn't want to see it expand. Here's why: Let's say for a minute that you have two new characters, Firebolt and Burner. They both have the SFX of mutant fire manipulation (whatever that is). Firebolt actually turns into a flaming form (like The Human Torch) Burner is able to create fiery blasts by gathering and concentrating the friction caused by air molecules rubbing together. If I was building Firebolt, I could easily see buying him something like: +30 ED only vs. Fire based attacks because he actually turns into a fiery form, so fire shouldn't hurt him. Burner on the other hand, is a more 'normal' guy who is able to manipulate fire. But, if he suddenly found himself in the middle of a gasoline explosion, he could easily get burned up before he had a chance to use his powers. However, if we just handwave "Same SFX = Personal Immunity to other guy's power", then Burner is immune to Firebolt's attacks even though he probably shouldn't be. (Firebolt may very well be immune to Burner's attacks, because he bought the extra ED.) I am not saying that anyone is suggesting the above. What I am presenting is why I would not like to see this go too far. I think it cuts down on character diversity, which is never a good thing. I am also not entirely sure about the cost. I know that if you bought the Personal Immunity it would be less useful than the Limited ED (depending on how the ED was Limited), but in a world where only Fire Mages can do Fire Spells, the PI will take care of 95% of any Magical Fire attacks you might encounter, with the occasional Dragon accounting for the rest if such even exist in this world. Even though it was my idea, I really like putting Limitations on the attacks themselves so that they don't affect members of the same school. It just seems cleaner to me. There is even some logic behind it. If think about what a place like Hogwart's devoted to Fire Magic would be like, it is pretty clear. Things would be blowing up and bursting into flame every time a couple of kids got into a spat. If the original designer of the spells had enough sense to want to avoid that, they could have designed them to not work on members of your own school. Also, wizards being a somewhat tricky and suspicious bunch, might not want to teach spells to other wizards that could be used to fry them in their sleep. By making sure that the spell you teach your apprentice can never be used against you, you could (literally) sleep a lot easier at night. And it leaves things open for the whole Anakin/Darth Vader thing of a student that turns against the school and comes back to destroy it, and none of the school's spells work against him! Good stuff all around. Just my opinion. You rule your world and know what is best for it. I go in peace. KA.

Re: Artwork in the Predators book The idea of having fans submit art seems like a good one. I am sure there is some way they could set things up so that DOJ would have the legal rights to the art. Perhaps they could make some type of token payment ($1) and have the artists sign a release. I think there are plenty of good artists around that would be thrilled to have their work published in a game book. It shouldn't be that hard. I remember a post where someone said that when they needed art for a book, they would give the artist a description of what they needed: "Supervillain, inside a lab, standing over several injured technicians." If they could post those, well in advance of when they needed them, they could just see what was submitted. If it was all crap, they could still hire it out as they have in the past. I just think there must be some way to get better, or at least more appropriate, art, without paying a lot more money. This way would involve the fans, as well, and could even draw business. I know that if someone in my group had a piece of art published in a RPG book that a lot of friends would buy it just for that. And, it could draw some of those people into Hero. KA.

Re: Personal Immunity...to What exactly? Lucius, Not that it matters for your campaign, but there is something about this construct that I just don't like. I think the main thing is, this seems like a real stretch of the definition of "Personal Immunity". Now I know that it is 'book legal' to say that if two characters have the exact same mutant power source for their EB, that they may have Personal Immunity to each other's powers, but I see that as more of a shout out to Cyclops/Havok than a well-thought out game mechanic. (No offense intended. ) To take that and stretch it further seems like making a bad thing worse. So, here is my suggestion: Why not put a -0 Limitation on the Multipowers and their slots that says: "Does not work on a member of the same school with a higher Pool." Why do I say -0? Well, since everyone knows what the Limitation is, it would never be a surprise. When Johnny Acolyte decides to take on Marvin the Arch-Mage, he knows good and well that his spells aren't going to work. And when rival mages from different schools battle each other, which should be what happens most often, it will have no effect. You could even take it to: "Does not work on members of the same school." This could lead to all kinds of cool intrigue. When mages wanted to attack rivals from their own school, they could either do it: Hand to Hand (always cool for some reason) By Hiring Mages from other Schools (lots of plot hooks available here) By using magic items that are outside their school This seems like it might be the best way to go. And it will keep the upper level mages from picking on the lower levels. KA.

Re: USPD III - Power Concept You could also make this a Disadvantage. Like if someone tossed him a feather boa and some pasties, he would start stripping. Or if someone tossed him some Boxing Gloves, he would start punching out the nearest person, whoever it was. Probably not in your concept, but if you wanted to build some kind of amnesiac android character, that was totally controlled by the current input, it could be kind of cool. And dangerous. Looks like I may have found the next NPC for my campaign. Muahahahaha! KA.

Re: But is it green and glowing? I guess this means that they are soon going to be having the standard Smallville conversations around the coffee shop: "Hey, remember the time I went crazy from meteor rocks and tried to kill you?" "Oh, yeah! Remember the time I went crazy from meteor rocks and tried to kill you?" "Yeah. Hey, whatever happened to Pete? Didn't you used to hang around with him?" "Yeah, he went crazy from meteor rocks and tried to kill everyone!" Sorry, but I have been watching Smallville reruns lately. KA.

Re: Re-envisioning I even have a title for you: Punched! KA.

Re: Re-envisioning You want to see Mrs. Garrett and Natalie get together? KA.

Re: Some questions...... VR Dragon, Why don't you post a few of your spells as an example, and we may be able to help you. It is kind of hard to tell where you might be going wrong, when we can't see where you are going. Or, if you are just coming up with overall guidelines, post those. KA.

Re: Why are robots always immortal? As others have said or implied, I think that the fact that robots are built, rather than born, makes them functionally immortal. Think of your car. A part breaks, you replace the part, the car goes on. Assuming that your car had a 'personality' stored in some type of memory, and that memory could be backed up, restored, transferred, etc., then your car could go on forever. Now imagine that your car has free will, and the ability to repair itself (extensible arms or something). It would go on forever, as long as the parts are available. KA.

Re: Liefeld's Titans You are wise indeed. I think they are counting on the "Howard Stern Effect". You know, where people who hate him listen twice as much as people who like him. Liefeld can probably claim, correctly, to be the "most talked about artist in comics". If we just ignore him, he will go away. KA.

Re: need another name Give her Physical Limitation : Dyslexic, and call her Destiny. What? I think if you really want to give her a decent name, come up with a little more detail on how her powers work. Is she using some mental discipline to alter her mass by force of will? Is it magic? Is it drawing/releasing particles from an alternate dimension? What are her other powers? What is her overall SFX? KA.

Re: Character Concept help.. Herophiles unite! I have a couple of questions, since I too am unfamiliar with Grunge. 1) For the Character's Defenses, you could buy something like Armor, with the Variable SFX and Variable Advantage Advantages, and the Variable Limitation Limitation (does someone hear an echo in here?) That way you would know how much Armor you actually had, but you could use the SFX, Advantages, and Limitations to model any differences that would make sense, and a Limitation of "Must touch X before using Power". Example: You touch Ice. You form Ice Armor. It has the SFX of Ice. It has an Advantage of Hardened. It has a Limitation of Ablative. (This was just off the top of my head but you get the idea.) So you have icy armor that is hard to punch through because it is really a bunch of thin layers of ice, but it also tends to chip away over time. You would want to come up with these sets of effects ahead of time for common items, so the entire gaming session isn't spent deciding what effect "Cheddar Cheese" Armor has. 2) For other people's defenses. What do you want to be able to do? Are you talking about turning Dr. Destroyer's Battle Armor into glass so that it is easy to shatter? For that you are either going to need a whopping Transform or you could just use it as the SFX for Find Weakness, Armor Piercing, etc. If you want to be able to take away someone's defenses just by touch, then it should be whoppingly expensive. If you want a cool explanation of why your character can penetrate most forms of armor, without allowing his friends to, then Find Weakness/Armor Piercing, etc. would be the way to go. You could have a Limitation on the Find Weakness that you had to touch the character in question for it to work, and SFX would do the rest. KA.

Re: Suggestions requested. Did someone call? KA.

Re: Players And the Strange things they do. I think that if I was the GM, I would have to respond with a team of Flying Monkeys. You really wouldn't want to face a group of angry Flying Monkeys with diapers full of poop. "Monkeys, prepare to fling!" KA.

Re: Help, the car hit the character! Erevahn, I would say in the particular case you describe (stand there and take it), the damage would be Normal. Why? Normal vs. Killing Damage is not really about "Can this kill me?" or "Is this Dangerous?" It is about two major factors: 1) Should Resistant Defenses be required to stop it? 2) How random is the damage? Let me give a bit more detail. 1) Should Resistant Defenses be required? If you get hit with a small stick, you will probably not take any damage at all. At the most, you may get a bruise. That is because your natural PD applies, so you have some defense to this attack. If you get nicked by a razor blade, you will bleed, because your skin's defense will not protect you from this type of attack. It is a Killing Attack. If you move up the scale a bit, a Boxer may be able to absorb a Punch that would knock you out, because he has a higher PD than you. But, you could still cut him with a razor blade, because that PD is still not Resistant. Moving on up the scale, a really tough Superhero might be able to handle a really large impact, like that of an SUV, or at the very least his PD would apply. But, if the same SUV had some type of sharpened spike on the front of it, and that spike is what hit the hero, he might easily be killed if his PD was not Resistant, because the spike would make it a Killing Attack. 2) How random is the damage? The other aspect of the Killing Attack is the randomness of the damage. While Normal attacks are fairly average in their damage, due to the number of dice involved, a Killing Attack damage roll that includes a lot of 1's or 6's can easily do almost no damage or a great deal of damage. The lower number of dice rolled makes the process more random. This is good for attacks that can be either very light or very damaging depending on how you are hit. Under normal circumstances, this might be a good way to emulate being hit by a car. Many people are killed by cars every year, but many people also survive because the car just 'clipped' them, or they 'bounced off'. This is a good indicator of something you might want to use a Killing Attack for, because it can be "all or nothing". However, you brought up a specific case, a Superhero bracing themself for a car to hit them on purpose. To me, that takes some of the randomness out of the equation. After all, part of the danger emulated by the Killing Attack is that you might get hit in a way that does lots of damage (neck bent sideways) or in a way that does very little (outstretched arm is clipped by passing car). But if you are standing there braced for the impact, you have a pretty good chance to 'choose' how you are hit. You aren't going to get clipped in the arm, because you want to stop the car, and you certainly aren't going to bend your neck sideways and use that to absorb the impact. Instead, you are basically going to try to withstand the blunt force of the vehicle, which means Normal Damage. Just my opinion, KA.

Re: Bypassing Armor that has Activation rolls