KA.

Re: Villainess Romance Appeal? You might be able to give Harry something to think about by introducing Tenderheart into your campaign. Tenderheart is a villain from the 4th Edition Dark Champions supplement "Underworld Enemies". Tenderheart is a female vigilante/villainess that is obsessed with the idea of falling in love with a Superhero, and having their love triumph against all odds. There is a problem, however . . . You could introduce Tenderheart into the campaign and have her flirt with Harry. He would, based on what you have said, probably act like a fool, letting her get away with anything, perhaps even turning on his previous friends in an attempt to impress her. Then . . . I think this could cure Harry of his problem with letting a Villainess get away with things she really shouldn't. KA.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely?

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? I choose D. Fred. Final Answer. In before the lock, KA.

Re: That Mechanon fella jest ain't right: a roleplay question This could be set up like Bishop in "Aliens". A previous Mechanon could be the "bad" one. From IMDB: Bishop: [bishop is puzzled by Ripley's reaction towards him] Is there a problem? Burke: I'm sorry. I don't know why I didn't even- Ripley's last trip out, the syn- the artificial person malfunctioned. Ripley: Malfuctioned? Burke: There were problems and a-a few deaths were involved. Bishop: I'm shocked. Was it an older model? Burke: Yeah, the Hyperdine System's 120-A2. Bishop: Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy. That could never happen now with our behavioral inhibitors. It is impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being. KA.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? You may want to read the following post, and the rest of the thread it is part of. There is some very wise advice there, and the poster makes some excellent points. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=562514&postcount=10 KA.

I am not sure of the genre yet, I am thinking of something set in the modern age, but with more of an upbeat, two-fisted, pulpy feel. That part is not the problem. The problem is the occupation of the party. My concept is this, a mixed group of characters with various useful background skills and some type of negative past. For example, a mixed group of ex-military types, who met during a group therapy session at a VA facility. (Think 'The A-Team' but with a little less silliness.) The random group forms a friendship and decide that they want a little less excitement in their lives. So they go into business together dong something seemingly mundane. That is the part I need help with. Movers? Carpet Cleaners? The point is, I want something that doesn't seem exciting, but can easily be tied in to all sorts of weird adventures. Basically the idea is that they don't want any sort of trouble, but they keep getting drawn into it, and when they do they have the skills to deal with it, even though they don't really want to. Also, between being slightly distressed veterans, and dealing with things like zombies, aliens, cults, etc. they really prefer to keep things quiet. I have an idea for a tagline at the end of each adventure, with one of the characters saying something like: "We probably shouldn't bring this up in group . . ." Any ideas on possible occupations? KA.

Re: How to encourage RP? I don't know if players ever roleplay as much as we want them to, but here are a few suggestions. 1) Do talk it out first if possible. Don't be heavy handed, but find a way to let them know that you are trying to run a campaign, not create a video game for them to stomp through. Part of playing an RPG is interaction between the characters. If possible, maybe even before the talk, see if you can have an 'inspirational' movie night. You may not want to tell the players the point of this exercise. (You could tell them that it is background for the game if they won't do it any other way.) Try to find a couple of contrasting movies, one with okay action but no real dialog, and one with both great action and great dialog between the main characters. Then do a little bit of compare and contrast. Why is the second movie so much better? Because the characters actually talk to each other, they don't just move from Point A to Point B. Let the players know that this is what you are trying to create. 2) Give the players problems that they have to figure out. Not obscure mysteries with clues that only Sherlock Holmes could comprehend. Things like a base they have to invade that is covered by some sort of force dome. It is too strong for them to just blast through with their powers. It is hardened against Desolid and Teleportation. After they have blasted it a few thousand times to no effect, they will eventually be forced into talking to each other about a way to get inside. Have there be some method that requires a combination of their Skills and Abilities. You may or may not have to come up with the method yourself, you can probably just let them do it. Example: After blasting the dome the first evening, they see a horde of agents come out from inside the dome and take up protective positions around the base. (Make sure you don't set up the scenario to be "do or die" on the first attempt. They need to get in there for some compelling reason, but it doesn't have to be tonight.) When they come back later, have the same actions produce the same result. Blasting the dome just brings out a bunch of agents. Hopefully someone on the team will have some sort of Enhanced Senses, or have some Scientific Skills to whip something up to take a closer look at the Force Dome. Again, have a backup plan of your own, but let the players take the lead. If one of them suggests looking for the Force Dome Generator, have them find something. If one of them wants to try to analyse the frequency of the Force Dome, have that work. The point is to have them working together and to have that produce positive results. Anything like: "I'm going to fly as fast as I can and ram the dome with all my might!" should not work out well. It should however provide a chance for the other characters to work together to rescue the now unconscious character who is bouncing toward the edge of the atmosphere at escape velocity. Let the players put together a solution on their own if possible, based on what they can do as a group. "Well, if Phazor can analyse the frequency and watch for a break in the pattern, he can tell Silver Shadow the exact right moment to teleport. Silver Shadow can teleport Bruticus and Hammerfist inside the dome with him, then they can coordinate attacks to take out all three of the Force Generators at the exact same time. Then the dome will come down, and we can all take on the squad of Agents. They won't be expecting some of us to already be inside, so we should be able to mop them up pretty quickly." KA.

Re: GM help with The Guild of Swords Tech, It sounds like you know your group and their preferences, but this sort of bait and switch seems way too common for my tastes, as either a player or GM. I have no idea about the overall tone of your campaign, but a lot of what I read about other campaigns seems to feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football . . . Here's a group, they seem cool, the players make friends with them . . . Ha! Ha! Ha! They are eeeeevullllll! You were fools to trust them! Again, this may not portray how your campaign works at all. However, if I were doing something like you are describing, I would do something like this . . . The group is exactly what it appears to be. A group of wealthy people that have an interest in medieval culture. At some point, due to their lives of wealth and inactivity, along with a healthy dose of old fashioned values, some of them become vigilantes. (Why does this story sound familiar? ) Anyway, the vigilante branch starts showing up, masked and disguised of course, and doing good, fading into the background before they can be identified. The problem is, over time, some of the other members decide that they believe in some other old fashioned ideas like might makes right. Which means that the overall group would be noble, if somewhat misguided in some people's minds, and other parts would be corrupt. The players would be in the same fix eventually. If they exposed the greedier, baser members of the group, they would also be taking down the noble vigilantes with them. That way you can have the same type of conflict without making the player characters into fools for trusting the group in the first place. KA.

Re: Typical abilities of the Common Pig? Razorback Lives! KA.

Re: Cyberpathy vs. People's Foci I guess the question is, what actually turns on the wrist saw? If it is controlled by my mind, through some sort of cybernetic hookup, then, since my instinctive reflexive response would be to turn it back off, EGO does seem reasonable. If it is controlled by some sort of mechanical switch, then we would be looking at TK to turn the switch ON vs. the armored character's STR trying to turn it OFF. I don't think, in either case, that this should be easy to do. Unless you have access to the blueprints for Iron Man's armor, how the heck would you know which one of the millions of circuits activate his boot jets? I see a major difference between being able to take over a robot with no "free will" attached, to taking over someone else's Focus, Powered Armor, etc. I am not even sure if something like "cyberpathy" should be able to work for this sort of thing. It seems like you basically need to be able to take over the Character's mind to be able to control his foci for this to be in any way balanced. At least the way most people seem to play the game. Now if you are a strict enforcer of "A -1/2 Limitation means you cannot use the power about 1/3 of the time" then having people take over your Armor, Foci, etc. every other adventure would be fine. But if you don't usually do things this way, then having Cybermancer be able to take over Dr. Destroyer's armor and make Dr. D into his houseboy may be a little jarring for most players. KA.

Re: How to best represent this mechanically: Random Alchemy?

Re: How to best represent this mechanically: Random Alchemy? And another innocent thread falls stone dead due to my posting in it. Rest in Peace, little thread, God be with you. KA.

Re: Balancing Mental Powers I don't want to make this into "punish the mentalist" as much fun as that is, but you should make him a priority for any team he faces, once they know about his powers. You may want to push him in the direction of using his mental powers a bit less often, using other abilities, if any, just to avoid the possible repercussions. "Do you really want to humiliate Ripper by having him attack his own team?" To quote Verbal Kint: "How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?" For one thing, not all villains have Code vs. Killing. Any villain that Mind Machine Man faces, that has any kind of combination of Casual Killer and Egomania is going to do something really fast and really nasty the second time they meet. Instead of a Flash or Darkness, they might decide to just blind him, or kill him. People tend to freak out over the idea of someone messing with their minds, and doing that to a personality that is anti-social/psychopathic to begin with could be a recipe for quick untimely death. Also, since the power is not fully invisible, unless the Brick can take out his own team in a single phase, Mr. Mind should expect to be hit with a withering crossfire from the rest of the other team as soon as they realize what is going on. Another possibility on a second encounter would be having the Brick pretend to fall for the illusion. He turns to a team-mate and grabs him: "I'll crush you Captain Hero!" and then the next round, while Mind Master is looking for his next target, Brickhouse sends his grabbed teammate, who coincidentally happens to be Clawmaster, right at Mind Master for a Surprise Fastball Special. KA.

Re: Black Ops Mutants: Help! CoreBrute, You may want to go to the first post in this thread and let your players know to avoid the whole thread. Otherwise, unless all the subsequent posters "spoiler" their ideas, your players may accidentally read them. KA.

Re: How to best represent this mechanically: Random Alchemy? This looks like a job for Side Effect, as part of the time tested combination of Activation Roll and Side Effect. Character attempts to use item as they think it works. If they make the Activation roll it works like they expected/guessed it would. If they fail the Activation roll, they get the Side Effect. I would probably go with the Extreme version of Side Effect. Otherwise, unless you are using a large VPP, the side effects might not be worth noticing. As far as the general idea, I think I am being influenced too much by "Master of The Five Magics". In that book alchemy was an expensive, laborious, dangerous process in which potion/item creation was the rarely successful result of a lot of hard work. The idea of an apprentice grabbing potions off the shelf and using them without even knowing exactly what they do is rather horrifying. "Daughter, that potion you threw at that kobold took Six Years of hard work and 500 Gold Pieces worth of ingredients to create. For that price, I could have hired an army to do your fighting for you. Not to mention the fact that, properly aged, it would have increased the King's virility and allowed him to sire an Heir to the Throne. That would have brought great honor, not to mention wealth, to our shop. Instead, the result was a damp and slightly randy Kobold. Your adventuring days are over!" On the other hand, in a more lighthearted campaign, I can see this as a fun idea. Although it might end up being more fun for me than the Player in question. "Oh, that potion doesn't summon spiders to attack your enemy. It turns your enemy into a giant spider." "That wasn't a poison antidote, that was a poison accelerator!" Plus this would make for some great plot hooks. "That 'water breathing' potion you gave to your party member just turned him into a Merman. He's swimming away at top speed looking for a Mermaid to mate with. At the rate he's going, it looks like he will be about 10 miles from shore and around 200 feet deep when it wears off. You should probably start trying to figure out how to find him, or at least what to tell his family when you get back to town." KA.

Re: How to best represent this mechanically: Random Alchemy? Repped! KA.

Re: Black Ops Mutants: Help! I hope this doesn't come off as a rant, but . . . I don't know what type of powers you are going with, but depending on what they are, you should include some kind of baseline defenses in the package. It is possible that some characters might have chosen to ignore defensive training/equipment due to their inborn powers, but other than in those cases, you may want to consider some/all of the following: Combat Luck Body Armor of some sort Depending on tech level Costumes/Clothing that provide some DEF and/or small Force Field projectors. Some type of genetically engineered Regeneration/Healing etc. It is probably just one of my pet peeves, but it drives me crazy when I see characters that are supposed to be Mercenaries/Black Ops etc. that live in a comparitively high-tech world and who do not take advantage of any Defensive gear whatsoever. I know you can watch action heroes in movies stride through battlefields with bullets whizzing everywhere and never get a scratch, but if a real character in a semi-realistic world knew that he: a) Was Not Bulletproof and Was absolutely going to get shot at during the course of his adventures he would take advantage of any gear/tech that was available. For that matter, even if I was bulletproof in the sense that a bullet might not kill me in one shot, if I was going in to combat, and there was a bulletproof vest that would prevent the discomfort of having a bullet bounce off my skin, I would use it. (I know it still hurts in the real world when you are wearing a vest and get shot, but I figure that if you are already bulletproof underneath, the vest might take the sting out of it.) Anyway, it just makes sense to me that a trained Black Ops team would have some kind of Defensive training/tech as part of the package. KA. P.S. This may be a flashback brought on by a recent re-reading of European Enemies. They have a couple of characters in there that are basically "Charge in and start fighting against highly armed troops" types that have no resistant PD at all. How these characters made it past their first encounter with someone with a gun is a mystery.

Re: My Bodyguard I hope that this works out well for everyone involved. I take PC death very seriously, but in this case I think it is the best choice for the player, the character, and the campaign. KA.

Re: My Bodyguard I have given this some long and careful thought, and I say, kill him. I would speak to the player of the Bodyguard, but not the other PC's, about it. Then the two of you could define the circumstances. A lethal ranged spell, an attack with an armor-piercing poisoned arrow, something that, armor or not, would flat out kill the other PC. The bodyguard sees it coming, throws himself in the way, and dies heroically. The character would get to justify his existence with his final act. I think it could make a great roleplaying opportunity and make a positive contribution to the campaign, instead of trying to push through with a character whose concept is ceasing to work. Even better, due to the mystic bond, the other PC could still receive occasional warnings from beyond the grave, thus keeping the dead character "alive" in the campaign. The player would then have the chance to bring in a new character that has a chance to thrive outside the other PC's shadow. An interesting twist might be to have the new character be a friend or relative of the dead bodyguard who has some resentment toward the other PC due to "getting my friend killed". Just my opinion, KA.

Re: KA.'s Idea Thread 3) Flesh and Bone Supervillain, or perhaps very Iron Age Superhero . Flesh and Bone is a man with a rather disturbing power. He seperates into just that, Flesh and Bone. I picture Flesh as an amophous blob-type creature. Highly resistant to damage. Able to change shape, stretch, etc. Bone is a tougher version of the typical animated skeleton (think Ray Harryhausen). I was thinking of Duplication with two very different forms. I may design them myself, but if anyone wants to take a shot at it, feel free. KA.

Re: Help with naming a spider themed character. I would suggest "Unktomi". http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/lore125.html Or maybe not . . . In any case, it appears that, much as Spider-Man has always found, a spider based hero is always going to be a tough sell to the public. You may want to call him Happy Shiny Rescue Man, or something equally upbeat, if you don't want everyone to run screaming when you show up. I don't really know a way around the instinctive negative reaction to giant spiders. Perhaps, if the hero is mystical in origin, it could have some kind of Mind Control power. One command: "Don't be afraid of the Big Spider!" That would make for some cool stuff. "Did that giant spider thing just rescue you?!" "Yeah." "Weren't you scared of it?!" "No, of course not." As the effect begins to wane . . . "Aaaahhhhhh! A giant spider grabbed me!" KA.

Re: Sub-Zero's Ice Clones I may be oversimplifying, but based on years of playing as Sub-Zero, I would probably go with something fairly simple like: Entangle 4d6, 4 DEF, Takes No Damage From Attacks (Physical Attacks) (+1/4); Activation Roll 14- (-1/2) Costs 33 Character Points 50 Active Points 5 END to use Basically the Activation roll allows for having to "set up" the attack by having the opponent run into the clone. The "No Damage from Physical Attacks" means that you can hit the character without damaging the Entangle, but if you use an Energy attack it "melts" or at least takes some damage. The whole clone/trap aspect is just special effects. Otherwise you may end up with something like the power in the game itself, meaning it basically never works. KA.

Re: Confused by Penetrating Check this thread: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22818 KA.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: when "automatic" perception gets limited I feel very strongly both ways As others have pointed out, I think that if someone is suddenly exposed to a condition that makes them unable to see, hear, etc. that they would suffer the full penalty involved. Imagine being in a grocery store that you had not shopped at before. Suddenly the lights go out and it is pitch black! Just because, before the blackout, you could clearly see which aisle the bread was in, and where the freezer case was, and most importantly where the Exit was, that does not mean that you know where those things are now. Perhaps if the character had Eidetic Imagery, Always On, then they would have a good idea of where things were in relation to him, but otherwise I think the shock of being suddenly unable to see would be enough to disorient him. On the other hand, if a person had been exposed to this situation before, and was expecting it, the effect might be lessened somewhat. As in, when you have been driving in and out of fog for a while, you get used to taking a good look at exactly where the road is heading as you drive into the next bank. It doesn't undo the effect of the fog completely, of course, but it does not affect you quite as much as the first time the world suddenly went "white". So, I think that the first time a character was exposed to the Change Environment, or if it happened by Surprise, they would suffer the full effect. But, if the situation is: "Watch out, guys! That's Fog Man and he's getting ready to do his Cloud of Fog again!" Then I think there should probably be some bonuses to the perception rolls. KA.