CBikle

Re: UMA Question I've been told that "the Super Dive-For-Cover" option is book-legal. So if you decide to abort on a segment you don't have an action on, your full movement is part of the abort. ie: Teleport Jones is spd 4. On segment 6, he teleports 10" (a half move) and punches Cryotron. On segment 7, Bruiser takes a swing at Teleport Jones; Teleport Jones decides to abort (his segment 9 phase) to a flying dodge and teleports 20" away and gets a +4 DCV bonus. I'm not 100 % positive, but I believe my example is correct.

Re: Best published adventure Some past favorites: Voice Of Doom The Great Super-Villain Contest To Serve And Protect. Around 4th edition on, the modules became substantially weaker (although oddly, the sourcebooks like Classic Enemies and Classic Organizations were fantastic.).

Re: Best published adventure Don't own it, but was just was run through it; wasn't impressed. Most of the scenarios had interesting premises (esp The Theme Park scenario), but were very weak in execution. Too much "railroading" and all of the scenarios seemed "event driven" (the PCs have to wait for something to happen) and didn't seem to have any avenues for PC investigation. Some of this might be attributable to the GM, but he seemed to be very much into the module and not lazy about this kind of stuff. I think it's strengths might be in providing reusable locations for future games. On the other hand, Villainy Amok looks very cool (especially the new "fire rules").

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game As a player, I'd hate that sign thing; it'd completely throw off my suspension of disbelief. However, that might work better in a convention game where time is limited. In the above example, the Prince's Pizza box info could actually be a clue (although, in the example, there seems to be enough other and more obvious leads to follow). If one of the PCs wanted to talk to the delivery boy(s) who brought the pizza, I'd be open to that and would consider what the kid may have noticed (usually I randomly roll for stuff like that). It might go something like: "The same guy always answered the door and paid for the pepperoni and marshmallow pizzas. Blonde guy, had a scar under his eye and always paid with those Susan B. Anthony dollars. Y'know, the ones that look like quarters".

Re: Works Well in the Source Material, not so Well in the Game Frog-marching players through "The Story". Characters in works of fiction will act in accordance with whatever leads to the specific end of the story; many players won't. A GM has a scenario that follows an obvious and rigid "story" approach with each step following a "chapter" approach with a predetermined ending will often wind up butting heads with his players. Nothing takes players out of the game faster than being railroaded into (or out of ) a course of action. I say this as a GM and a player.

Re: Is Stunned Visible? Yes and it works both ways: villains know when PCs are stunned. Not really my preference, but it keeps our combats moving faster (each game is pretty much limited to three hours total).

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line?

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line? I was going to post this reply: "I don't think that'd be the case; the character could still be picked up and receive knockback." And then I thought about it and realized I was incorrect. I think most GMs are not going to want to deal with the ramifications of a PC with this power and those GMs that do allow it will only be for NPCs.

Re: Two-Headed Man? You could use the 5-headed hydra model shown under the duplication power in 5E.

Re: Using Supervillain Psych Lims In every game I've played and GMed in, campaign disads like Hunteds and DNPCs pretty much only showed up when the GM incorporated them into the scenario. This was largely done out of necessity, especially if you start rolling for the villain's hunteds. Technically, if the hunteds do show up, you're expected to roll for their hunteds and DNPCs as well...

Re: weather control in space? I suppose if a nearby comet was flying nearby, the GM might be kind and rule that weather control powers could influence it and generate some effects. Still kind of a stretch though.

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line? That's not unreasonable, but now you have a case where you have SFX trumping other SFX. Let's say one player wants the character who is immune to all diseases and in the other corner, you have a character who wants a super-disease ability that can affect anyone. Who trumps who ?

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line? Not necessarily. Most (probably 90% +) disease/biowarfare attacks will probably be bought as either an NND (with the appropriate LS as defense) or have something like "Does not affect LS: immunity to disease (-1/4)" bought as a power limit. I could see an attack like this bought without the NND/power limit option if it was supposed to represent some sort of weird "super-disease".

Re: It seemed like such a good idea... When I GM, one of my pet peeves is when players use the same trick over-and-over. The two I got tired of seeing was: - The tactic of the brick grabbing one villain and repeatedly using him as a club on another villain. - Fixating on grabbing/destroying villain's OAFs (this one is more player-specific; the player would always do this no matter what character he was playing).

Re: Best Books of the Silver Age

Re: Mechanics vs. SFX... Where is the line? With your example, I might've gone with a different power-build. Maybe: 3D6 Entangle, blocks sight group, entangle only blocks sight; does not otherwise hinder the target (-1) or maybe the Darkness power, but limited to a single target and some limit like Darkness removed if target spends 1 phase wiping away dark-goo (-3/4)

Re: Ethics for mentalists Going back to the original post, the one mentalist character I played (in a GURPS Supers game set in the Wild Cards universe), was Info, basically a street informant who was also secretly a mentalist and genius. Info basically read the minds of most people he came into contact with, the rare exceptions being anyone Info thought might notice him doing so. Info generally used his abilities in the service of the police and law-enforcement "Aces" (Wild Cards slang for anyone who has super-powers, but no discernable deformities). Kind of a case of doing the wrong thing for the right reason.

Re: Irreducible Damage When Damage Reduction was first introduced (way back in Champions III), it was intended to be the "last word" on defenses. It was really created so that giant monsters, megavillains or whatever, couldn't be easily one-punched (that's why NNDs and AVLDs were included). The whole concept was really only intended for NPCs.

Re: Custom Mechanon Hi Assface. Originally (around 3rd ed.), Ogre was created by Mechanon when he was testing out his De-Evolution Ray. Hope this helps, Assface.

Re: Ethics for mentalists Right. Truth be told, you're really only going to see this degree of mind control used by NPCs anyway, who're presumably deliberately designed by the GM to routinely achieve this kind of effect.

Re: Ethics for mentalists Ah. I was unaware he'd done that. I was thinking more about his reluctance to telepathically read minds which was a more common thread to some of the later X-Men stories (specifically when he was tutoring Jean Grey). I also think this tied into the school's original purpose, of fostering positive mutant-human relations, partially by training mutants how to use their powers and do so responsibly.

Re: Ethics for mentalists In comics, most "diehard" mentalist-heroes show great reluctance in using their abilities to probe or alter minds (Prof. X and Jean Grey come to mind). Silver-age pseudo-mentalists never had as many moral quandaries (Superman using Super-Hypnotism or Wonder Woman using her magic lasso to subdue their adversaries). Captain Comet and the Martian Manhunter often used their mental powers to "get the big picture", but there was never really any comeuppance from the authorities (Captain Comet was a superhero for a small town[i guess they looked the other way] and the Martian Manhunter did most of his mental stuff secretly anyway[while disguised as a police detective]).

Re: Ethics for mentalists It's been my experience that the campaign world's tolerance for mentalists is comparable to the GM's. That usually means: ego blasts are ok, everything else should be done in moderation and not used on anybody of significance to the campaign. Really all comes down to each individual GM's comfort-level with mental powers.

Re: Land of confusion Another route is buying extra PRE to model the effects. Something like this: 11 Spell Of Confusion: +35 PRE (35 Active Points); Requires A Skill Roll (-1/2), Only to cause confusion-related effects (-1/2), Single taget only (-1/2), Costs Endurance (-1/2), does not defend vs. pre attacks (-1/4)

Re: Will the real Jolly Jonah Jameson please stand up? JJJ's backstabbing in New Avengers was a bit jarring. The most recent issue of The Pulse leads you to believe that there's an explanation for this. I like most of Bendis' writing, but sometimes he'll resolve or include important story elements from a title to a completely different book that he's writing. If the explanation for JJJ's behavior is resolved in Daredevil (which Bendis is writing), I probably won't know about it because I don't read that title.