Baphomet Jones

Re: Critique my Villain, KingTone

Re: Critique my Villain, KingTone I could see this guy in some sort of tunnelling APC or something, maybe using a sonoluminesent beam to cut its way thru rock, and an ultrasound periscope of sorts to navigate, and scan topside....maybe N-ray perception for active sonar. You could make it truly all-terrain by buying some Swimming for it, with or without the surface-only restriction. Depending on your game setting, that could open up a lot more escape routes for him and his henchmen.

Re: Critique my Villain, KingTone I guess that depends on the campaign's level of "super-ness". I tend to use NCM as a yardstick when making my PC's and NPC's, so for most of my characters, he could still be a credible threat, especially if he had some tricky occulttech from his VPP ready.

Re: Critique my Villain, KingTone I, personally, like the OAF staff, even though it is something of a weakness being accessable. It makes for a cool image of the character, and gives the heroes a chance to exploit it. Hanging back and dodging will help him hang onto it longer, and his forcefield will protect it in case anyone tries to just shoot, and damage it. I probably wouldnt make it an EC though. Instead, i would go for a single 12d6 EB with variable sfx (light,heat,sound & subsonics/vibration). The ablative forcefield is cool as well, letting him start off well protected, but slowly becoming more vulnerable to other heroes who may not have been able to hurt him at the beginning of a fight. I've been trying to do this myself with my master villains, so they don't get pasted with a big opening shot, but their extra defense is at a level where heroes who do less damage still have a chance of whittling it down to where they can be effective, and eventually take him out. His speed is probably higher than i would go for, but i like that he has powers other than the armor and staff from his Wyrm genetics. I think power armor guys should be able to do something without their suit, and anyone expecting King Tone to be a milquetoast without it is in for a surprise.

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon My favorite has to be the Skrill from Earth:Final Conflict. It's an Energy blasting symbiote that grows into the users arm, and is controlled by a viral brain implant. It was alluded to that they were sentient, but too alien to really understand.

Re: Supernatural Special Forces Hmmm...let's see... --Spiked collars, to discourage neck bites. --Skin cream infused with wolfsbane and garlic, you'll smell terrible, or delicious, depending on who you ask.

Re: Tactics Skill I've allowed my players to use Tactics for Surprise Maneuvers in combat, the same way you can use Acrobatics (+1OCV for every 3 pts they succeed by). If they were facing an opponent with Tactics, I made it an opposed roll.

Re: I need a trained parrot writeup Generally in stress situations a real parrot will fly straight to its favorite person and bite them to warn them its time to run away (they're not brave at all). Of course a fictional one could launch itself into the fray, ignoring danger. They also tend to nip their human friends when they see someone they hate (being afraid to go bite them, but really wanting to anyway), rather than launching into insults, as seen in movies.

Re: I need a trained parrot writeup Heh...no I'm not (thank all that is good). The 5 year old thing is something I hear a lot when people try to quantify a parrot's ability to understand us and our world. They are a lot smarter than they get credit for, and i doubt we'll ever really be able to understand how smart they are. 'Cos theyre not like us. They have no nipples. Not one.

Re: I need a trained parrot writeup Thinking some more about it...a hearing group flash attack could also be a possible ability for them. My birds are considered to be one of the quiter species of parrot, physically unable to attain the decibel levels of some breeds, and it still causes physical pain and ear-ringing when they do a full-on scream near me. Parrots also have mischief-prone personalities, so Sleight of Hand, limited to pilfering things would be appropriate. Their hearing is pretty sharp, and some researchers think it may extend into sub/ultra-sonic ranges. Their visual spectrum is also higher than humans, though their night vision is pretty poor, as is their sense of smell and taste. Hopefully that helps with some power and Disad. ideas.

Re: I need a trained parrot writeup You could do the combat irritant ability with negative skill levels. If they would be based on it buzzing the target, they could be linked to flight, or if it's based on taunting, with incantations. It's bite damage would probably depend on the species, with macaws having higher levels, down to a 1 pip hka for smaller breeds like conures or Senegal parrots. Intelligence-wise, many are about as smart as a 5-year old child, with a few exceptional examples, like Alex, an african grey parrot, who can differentiate objects by color and shape. He's featured in a PBS program called Look Who's Talking Now, or something similar. The stuff that he can do is pretty amazing, and well suited for a crimefighting companion bird. There are also a bunch of pretty cool documentaries that show the problem solving and tool-making/using abilites of crows, but I'm not sure of the names of them.

Re: Just a Low-Rent Superhero I second that. He's very cool.

Re: 1 Speed No, but our group fought a villain with a 1 speed, he had absorb physical & energy and a spd drain damage shield (he was sort of like a living temporal anomaly), and was the nemesis of our speedster with a 12 spd. Everyone was terrified of him. I've never played a guy with a 1 speed mainly because I never really came up with a good character concept for a really slow guy.

Re: A question to the physics-minded... The development of this sort of high velocity frictionless projectile could make for a cool story seed, as a local speedster hero gets kidnapped for study by the R&D guys wondering why he or his costume don't seem to be harmed by the friction of his high speeds. They may even just steal his costume or shoes to see what they're made of and how they stand up to the stress.

Re: Working Stiffs -- Champions Style! I had a guy who's secret ID was a Yakuza lieutennant in the clan that was hunting his Hero ID, so he had lots of info on his enemies. I got to play an entire session with him busting heads in his secret ID, since that adventures villains also happened to be enemies of his clan.

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic Those extra points will also help them out paying for droids, or the dozens of languages they'd need to understand just to have a conversation in a bar. One idea that we had in a tentative Star Wars campaign was to have each player make one Jedi (at a superheric point level), and one or more heroic level characters. At that point the adventures would be structured like the movies, where the Jedis would have to face The Big Menace, and the other heroes would have to focus on the "nail missions" to insure they succeeded (rescuing people, blowing up shield generators/droid control ships and whatnot). Play would shift between each group scene by scene as each neared their goal and the whole thing came together for the big explosion, or lightsaber duel at the end. While this isnt really an idea for balancing the "super" and heroic level characters, everyone would have a Jedi character that would get to be in the spotlight at some point for the big saber duel, lessening the feeling of being overshadowed.

Re: trigger Yes, if the flash attack is set up with a trigger, then you can use it as a 0-phase action on your phase and then perform another attack.

Re: Power Armor 'themes' Partly stealing from Supreme Serpent's Elemental Armor idea, an Occultist/magic type who can physically merge with a statue of some sort to amp up his lacking physical abilities could be an option. He'd have a totally different skill set than a "standard" PA guy, and possibly some inherent abilities as well.

Re: Power Armor 'themes' I only have two ideas right now, more as they come to me... Electric Eel: Electric Damage shield, high swimming, and Life Support (self contained breathing, safe environment: high Pressure), sonar or other sense for use underwater Chameleon: Invisibility (or other convenient stealth power build), plus Clinging and extra Leaping (instead of the normal flight one sees a lot in power armor guys)

Re: Hero with a bad ticker? I had been playing with an idea like this at one point. I built it as a susceptibility 3d6 (possibly as body if it's a really serious heart problem) whenever the character spent more than (x) END in a phase....which i figured would be Uncommon, since he'd have control over when this happened.

Re: Manipulating opponent position in combat - how? Oh Yeah....somehow I totally forgot about Surprise maneuvers, using Acrobatics, and in some cases Sleight of Hand and Acting (mentioned in UMA). Just cerebral flatulence i guess.

Re: Manipulating opponent position in combat - how? You could also build it as a power or superskill by buying CSL's in HTH with a few limitations on it. I'd figure Requires a half-move:-1/4, costs END, or Requires a skill Roll/activation (to represent the fighter's skill at maneuvering) could all work.

Re: Character question:Savant I would probably use a gadget pool VPP, but without any associated skills, except maybe inventor as the required skill to alter the pool, since the character wouldnt really understand the science behind the creation, but has an intuitive knowledge of how to build it.

Re: The Chemistry of Obsession: A DC: TAS campaign idea I love it!! Finally the theme bad guys I've always enjoyed make perfect sense.

Re: GAC Plots Don't forget homegrown plots too. Heroes at home visiting their families could stumble onto a plot in their hometown by Nazi collaborators to steal The Plans (or the Super Soldier formula or whatever) and deliver it to a Nazi version of Captain Nemo waiting offshore in his super-sub surrounded by a legion of speargun-toting frogmensch. It would give the plot much more menace when their trusted neighbor is among the spies.