Ranxerox

Re: Tigra Well, that is how you bought it.

Re: Tigra Excuse me. I'm not getting this. What do you mean that Modifiers affect Base Characteristic? The only modifier is OIHID. Do you mean that out of Hero ID she does not even have her Base STR, DEX, CON and PRE?

Re: COPS, CREWS, AND CABALS -- What Do *You* Want To See? I would like to second (or possibly third or fourth, if second is already taken) requesting a religious group(s). Recently, I did a game where demons played a big role and was surprised by the paucity of official CU religious NPCs for the players to turn to for information. Instead of the Vatican I was thinking more in terms of a church doing a lot of outreach to the superhuman community. This would step on fewer real world toes and could make for some interesting role-playing as hero (and possibly villains) get targeted as potential converts.

Re: Whould you buy...CHAMPIONS SOUTH OF THE BORDER and CHAMPIONS OF THE RISING SUN. Count this as another vote for Champions South of the Border. Might get the Japon book, but much less of a sure thing.

Re: A Renaissance Man History is littered with real life Renaissance men and the present day even has some running around. So obviously, it is not necessary to 'know everything' or 'do everything' to be a Renaissance man becuase no real person could know or do everything. It is my understanding of the term Renaissance man, that it denotes someone with accomplishments in art, science and the public sphere, and generally their accomplishments in at least one of these areas should be truely significant. A important job with the DoHS should cover the public sphere requirement. Now all that you have to do is add some significant science skills and an art, or significant art skills and a science. To add character you might want to pick an offbeat or unusual art or science to round the character such as video game design or entomology. Of course that is to meet the minimun bar claim to claim the title Renaissance man. Since this is a game based on comic books you might want be a less realistic in your Renaissance man's scope of accomplishments. For an example character of a comic book level Renaissance man, I would like to recommend Susano's write-up of Buckeroo Banzai.http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionsmovie/buckaroo.html

Re: MA Power Tricks I would probably allow this use of MA powr trick in a comicbook or a cinematic martial setting. Of course if the character is going to make a habit of this move, they would have to pay points to buy the trigger.

Re: MA Power Tricks Hmmm. Thanks for all the input, but I didn't really start this thread to talk about that one particular move.It is just what got my mind on the idea of martial artist and power tricks in the first place. Bricks do power tricks; speedsters do power tricks; energy projectors do power tricks; why shouldn't martial artist also do power tricks? If Nite Ninja wants cut a chair in two and do it so quickly and cleanly that it doesn't fall down until someone tries to sit in it, does he really need to buy a special power to do it? What about when Karate Ken when he wants to do Bruce Lee's trick of breaking boards with his fist starting the punch just 1 inch away from the board?

Re: MA Power Tricks Yes, the Deadly Blow talent would be a good way for this character to do the kind of damage that he is shown routinely doing. Thank you for pointing me to it, since I've only read select parts of my DC book and did not know of the existence of this talent.

Re: MA Power Tricks Well, yes and no. The victim was dead and how he died was a special effect, but there is more happening than that. The victim in question had an army of thugs backing him up, and the way that the Shaolin Cowboy killed him was obviously meant to send a message to that army. There was no question that the victim died in exactly the manner that Shaolin Cowboy intended him to die So, yes it is a special effect but it is a "called" special effect. Normally, when a character rolls enough damage to kill someone it is the GM who describes exactly how the person died (note: this isn't somehting that happens much in my campaigns, I favor the Bronze Age over the Iron Age). IMO, this is a case where the player described the special effect of the death and all the GM and dice did was say whether it went off according to the player's plan. Since power tricks are often used for show-off moves like turning coal into diamonds, it struck me as an appropriate already in game method for handling the matter. I like your all or nothing sword. I'm sure that Shaolin Cowboy could have just as easily killed the guy with a rock or pair of chopsticks, so I don't think it would be appropriate to buy his sword that way. However, if I ever find myself in a fantasy campaign, I might make a character with a sword that "slays all who it touches". That would be very cool.

I recently read a comicbook called The Shaolin Cowboy, and the title character cut through a man's neck twice in what appeared to be one motion, and then kicked out section of the man's neck that was between the two slices. Okay a it's a very sick and violent comic, but that's not what I'm posting about. I was trying to write the Shaolin Cowboy up in my head and was struggling with how to express an over-the-top, utterly ridiculous killing move like one with the guy's neck. I briefly considered Major Transform: Living Person to Spectacularly Dead Person. Ultimately, I decided that I was making this too hard, and that what the SC had done was power trick. Which brings me to my question, have any of you bought the Power Trick skill for a martial artist and if so what sort of tricks did they use it to perform?

Re: Superhero idea: The Cycler Hmmm, a very different and original character. You might want to consider taking the limitation Foci on some of his powers that have biking gear as special effects. The point savings could go into improving his DEX and Speed. A 4 Speed is low for most superherioc campaigns and ridiculously low for a character that is essentailly a a speedster.

Re: THE ULTIMATE MENTALIST -- What Do *You* Want To See? I had a character that had Mental Illusions with the -1/2 limitation 'Only to change memories'. Of course implicit in this limitation is the notion that Mental Illusions already can be used to change memories and therefore the character was being limited by being able to only change memories. A case could have been made (though fortunately for me my GM did not choose to make it) that Mental Illusions don't normally extend to memories and that a custom advantage or adder was needed to make them extend to memories. So, I would like to see some clarification about using Mental Illusions to alter a targets perceptions of intangible things like memories, emotions and viewpoints. Also, I would like to see at least a few pages devoted to Mental powers based on CON. As we learn more about how brain chemistry and brain structure effect emotion and cognition, mentalist who act by making physical and/or chemical changes to the brain rather by directly attacking the mind become viable.

Re: The Next Thanks for the reply SAV. Not really sure why you are finding it unreadable. I wouldn't call The Next any sort of masterpiece certainly, but I have found it generally clever and entertaining. Well, since nobody else has even replied, I guess in the minority in finding this book fun. Well, been there before and suspect that I will be there again.

Is anyone else reading this comic, and if so do you have any idea on how to make these guys? I'm particularly interested in how to make Tweet (of course) and Ben, but they all pose challenges. Just wanted to here the thoughts of anyone else out following this book.

Re: 39 point me I did this back when I was a teen and I think that I came out between 40 and 50 points. The depressing thing is that I know that I would come out to fewer points now. As a teenager I was into Tae Kwon Do, and could claim 3 MA manuevers. Also my DEX, CON, and Speed were better back in the day. Since then I have picked up a few skills and have increased my PRE. However, it doesn't balance out the points that I lost by letting my MA skills slip away. On the bright side, I have bought off all the disadvantages that I had as a teen (poor, nearsighted, and shy). So at least I can feel that i have made some progress.

Re: What power sets do you like, but never play? You can add me to the list of frustrated would-be mentalist. Also, I've been wanting to play a character whose major power was Transform or Summoning. Unfortunately, these are both concepts that are hard to balance with a party of players.

Re: Aurora Trek I liked it. The heroine was particularly appealing, and not just because she is really cute (though that doesn't hurt). Also, I like the basic premise of the adventures of a merchant vessel in the ST Universe. It would be nice if it got picked up by the SciFi channel or Cartoon Network.

Re: A teleport EC You might also consider buying the advantage "Indirect" for his strength, and a TP with one or more levels of Megascale to help him get around.

Re: Starting a SH campeign

Re: Free Will I did not read as much into the statement as you did. Since it is said in passing and not mentioned again while the absence of war and killing was mention several times, I took the statement about happiness as being relative to the bad old days and not some Brave New World Soma-like bliss. As for your arguement about that war/threat-of-war is responsible for all progress, David Johnston does a admirable job countering it. The only thing that I wish to add is that the nation of Japan which went a half century without a standing army and the knowledge that the U.S. would protect it were it attacked transformed itself from a backwards nation to argueably the most technologically advanced country on the planet. So how does that fit into you theory about all progress being preparation or responce to war?

Re: Free Will You are right that should have paid more attention to specific scenario instead of focusing so much on on the later debate about the value of free will. According to the scenario Now if the nemesis is basically Lex Luthor, you are right that he should not be trusted for a minute. However, if the now President is the rip off from Superman comic but the villian isn't Lex Luthor but instead someone more credible taking a noble course, then it might be worthwhile to protect him if my character can dissuade him from exterminating his ememies.

Re: Starting a SH campeign No, it's a lot scary. You will notice that in the entire of run of the Star Trek series they spent hardly any time at all on Federation worlds. IMHO, as much writing talent as went in to those series they still felt overwhelmed by the idea of trying to portray what it would be like live a normal life in the 23rd century. The idea of trying to come up with a credible view of fashion, slang, work, lifestyle, religion, marriage, technology, etc. for 2 or 3 hundred years into the future is just a bit much. Unless you are extremely creative and have a huge amount of time on your hands, I suggest cheating on creating the setting. Either borrow (steal) a setting(s), or put the characters someplace isolated like a starship or remote colony world where they are out of contact with greater society. If you go the borrow route, you can make it seem fresh by using multiple sources and changing details. For example you might overlay a Star Trek government on a Star War's group of worlds and have them under attack by a Battlestar Galaxia style menance, and just for good measure change all the names.

Re: WWYD if you could recieve ONE super power Mental Illusions, only to change memories, invisible, reduced END, a whole lot to dice. "No I don't owe you money. Don't you remember? I paid you back weeks ago and loaned you $20 to boot. You owe me money." "Hi. Remember me? We met at your friend's party. We had a real good time together after the party." "But, honey, you said that since I had been so good all week, I could just sit around and play on my computer today. You remember saying that don't you?"

Re: Free Will Hmmm. So most of you believe that the right of a person to choose to kill is more important than the right of the victim to live (and therefore get to make any choices at all thereafter). Personally, if I were a vastly powereful mentalist, I can think of quite a few conflicts that I would put an end to before the end of immediately; and if I had enough power I might simply choose to end them all. This would no doubt involve restricting peoples free will some, but it would still leave them with an infinite amount of choices still available to them. It would just be an infiniting made ever so slightly smaller by loss of the choices to murder rape and torture. Were their people that were immune to my mental powers and they chose to kill me, I would consider it well worth the trade if I could provide the world one day where no one is murder, raped or subjected to torture. However, of course the original question wasn't what I would do with such powe,r but what I would do if another person had it and was asking for my protection while they enforce the peace. Well, if they weren't otherwise abusing their power, then I would probably be willing to protect them. Though I wouldn't necessarily be willing to protect them to the point of hunting down and killing their enemies.

Re: Foxbat Went a Courtin'.... Opps, my bad. I was thinking that she was Foxbat's girlfriend, but I looked at my AC collection ans she is just someone who took over his base after his (exaggerated) death. She also took over the Foxbat and Fandom letter column, and that is probably where I got the idea that she was his girlfriend. Mea culpa.