Zeropoint

Re: Well, I finished reading Conquerors, Killers and Crooks, and... I see it as a sliding scale: Everyday tech (a normal PDA) Tech that's a little ahead of the curve (a PDA with the power of an average desktop computer) Technology that's WAY ahead of the curve (a PDA with supercomputer-level power, holoprojector display, and the ability to adapt software from other operating systems in realtime) Technology that invokes Clarke's Law (a PDA consisting of an apparently featureless crystal worn as an earring, which has a sentient operating system and communicates with the user "telepathically") Somewhere in between the third and second levels, real tech starts to diverge from super-tech, and there needs to be an in-game explanation for why one character can do it, and no one else can. Keep in mind that science advances rapidly, and what seems like "magic with a tech veneer" today might turn out to be perfectly normal technology. So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that there is room for both "supertech is really magic" and "supertech is just really advanced tech" in the same campaign. This means, naturally, that I reject the company line about magic being the source for all superpowers in my campaign world. I can't make any changes in the official Chapions Universe--that's up to Steve and company--but I have the power to make whatever changes I want in MY campaign universe. Zeropoint

Re: The Incredibles One of the best superhero movies ever! I'm definitely getting this on DVD. Oh, and for the record, I'm 28. Zeropoint

Re: Armour Piercing as an Adder What if you threw the Real Armor limitation on the kevlar vest, and simply ruled that it wasn't fully effective against some types of attacks (like high-velocity rifle bullets)? Zeropoint

Re: New To Hero: Character Advancement As I said before, this isn't the system, it's your specific GM and game. If I was running a superhero game that I expected to last for about six months to a year, I'd be giving out 2-3 XP per week, or maybe a little more. For a 75+75 fantasy game where the players don't have to pay points for equipment, that might be a little much. [edit: On the other hand, only giving 1 point per session AND requiring a month of in-game training is pretty harsh] 1 point per session might seem a little low, but you can get +1 OCV with a specific attack (all longbows, for instance) for only 2 XP. Does D20 let you get a +1 to-hit every other session? Regarding Everyman skills, it is true that the GM gets to decide what will be on that list, but both FRED and the genre books give sample lists, and if the GM isn't letting you have those skills, he's ignoring an optional but important part of the game--Everyman skills are the equivalent of D20's "usable untrained" skills: things that anyone can attempt, whether they've practiced it or not, and have some chance of success. Finally, if you could post your character here, whether as a Hero Designer file or in text, we (I feel confident in speaking for the entire board here, as this is an uncommonly helpful bunch) could perhaps point out a way to get more for your points. Zeropoint

Re: New To Hero: Character Advancement Are you playing Fantasy HERO? Or some other genre? Also, have you put your character through any combat in the game yet? It's possible that your GM is making the encounters too hard--if you have to ignore non-combat skills completely just to survive, then I'd say that game isn't balanced quite right. As far as swimming goes, you get 2" of swimming for free, so unless you sold it back, your character can swim just fine already. Zeropoint

Re: New To Hero: Character Advancement Don't be too quick to dismiss a single point. One point will get you a point of STR or two points of COM, or a new familiarity. Two points will increase a skill. Three will get you a point of DEX, or a single-attack combat skill level. That's a big part of it. A level one D&D character pretty much sucks, especially if it's a magic-user. A starting HERO character (depending on genre and point level) might be able to ignore bullets and punch through a reinforced concrete wall. Also realize that the rate of character advancement is not set by the system, but by the individual GM, so it will vary from game to game. Zeropoint

Re: Shapeshifting I have interpreted this issue such that Plastic Man basically defines "Shape Shift vs touch only". Shape Shift vs sight and touch would, in most cases, be enough to constitute a complete shape change, although vs. hearing could be useful as well. This does leave the shapeshifter vulnerable, but that reflects the source material. In X-Men, Wolverine could smell Mystique even when she was shapeshifted, for example. Your slithering sounds like a snake, because that sound is generated by your scales touching the ground. If you want to hiss, though, you're falling back on your normal snake impression. And your form looks like a snake, because that's what it's shaped like. You look like a snake with human-style eyes and human skin instead of snake scales (but, oddly, it FEELS like snake skin, so maybe it looks like human skin with some kind of dermatological problem). Zeropoint

Re: Election Day Special - The Best Artist In Comics I notice that you have included only American comic artists in your list. I, as the guy that keeps dragging manga into superhero comics discussions, am going to have to nominate Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Black Magic, Dominion Tank Police ), Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicca of the Valley of Wind ), and Hiroaki Samura (Blade of the Immortal ). There are, of course, artists that I'm leaving out, and I am in fact leaving out the authors of several series that I like, because this is about talent as an artist, and these three have the most distinct and impressive artwork. Also note that Hayao Miyazaki has created much more than Nausicca, but since that's the only one of his works that I've encountered in the manga form, it's the only one I'm including. His films include but are not limited toKiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky: Laputa, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. Runners-up: Yukito Kishiro (Battle Angel Alita, Aqua Knight), Kenichi Sonada (Gunsmith Cats, Cannon God Exxaxion), Kia Asamiya (Steam Detectives, Martian Successor Nadesico), and Kosuke Fujishima (Oh My Goddess!, You're Under Arrest, Tales of Symphonia (the recent Gamecube RPG) ). In the interest of dragging this back around to American superheroes, Kia Asamiya is the author and artist of Batman: Child of Dreams. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion. Zeropoint

Re: Can we define the archetypes? I think that archetypes are a very usefull tool for quickly conveying a rough idea of what a character can do. Granted, most characters will not fall exactly into an archetype, but it can be helpful to be able to say, "He's a really bricky brick" or "she's a flying speedster". Does that tell you everything you need to know about the character? No, of course not. Does it give you a rough idea of what their role in the group might be? Yes, and that's what archetypes are for.

Re: New to this Genre Find cover first, then worry about returning fire. A pistol is a weapon to use when you can't get a long gun (shotgun or rifle). If you're fighting fair, you're not really fighting. When in doubt, grenade it out. Zeropoint

Re: Effect of Super-Tech on Society? I basically break supertechnology into three categories. First, you have very low-level stuff, which is basically modern technology that nobody else thought to build, or something a few years ahead of real-world tech. This doesn't have much of an effect on society--computers are faster, cell phones work better, but for the most part, no new capabilities are added. Second, you have real technology which is ahead of its time. This tech conforms to the real laws of physics, and can be built, maintained, and operated by anyone who can understand it, but is sufficiently advanced that not many people CAN understand it, and the industrial infrastructure for manufacturing it doesn't exist, so it's extremely expensive to build. Imagine a microwave oven in 1910, and that's about where this is. Super-gadgeteers somehow manage to build this stuff without huge resource bases, then governments (and VIPER) reverse-engineer it so they can equip agents with plasma rifles. Finally, you have "overtechnology", which basically doesn't work for anyone other than the creator. Maybe he or she knows some physics that the rest of the world doesn't, maybe it's some kind of tech-enabling aura; who knows? All we can say for certain is that only Doc Brown can keep the flux capacitor working. This technology doesn't change the world at all, because there isn't enough of it to do so. This gives me a world where plasma rifles exist, but you're more likely to see the Paranormal Alert Response Team carrying a .50 BMG rifle with armor-piercing bullets, or that new Barret 20mm rifle, because they're a LOT cheaper and easier to maintain. Power armor exists, but every suit is a hand-built one-off, so you don't see hordes of power-armored troops on the battlefield. Robotics is more advanced that in RL, but usefully inttelligent robots are still beyond the grasp of normal development. Zeropoint

Re: Do you use the official Champions Universe? I'm a 2. I use (well, WILL use, if I can ever get my players together) the Champions universe, with San Angelo added into southern California. Now I just have to figure out why all the supervillains are migrating from Michigan to California. Also, I reserve the right to make any additions, subtractions, or alterations as I see fit. I, too, am not really happy with the official CU explanation for Tunguska. Zeropoint

Re: What are opinions about cloning in your universe? I rule that anytime a computing system capable of supporting sapience comes on line, it is issued a soul. That goes for organic brains, neural-net computer cores, pure software AI, freak current fluctuations in a stellar envelope, whatever. If it's a person, it has a soul. From a legal standpoint, any sapient being is considered a person with the same rights and responsibilites under the law. It's a lot easier for humans or humanoid organic beings to be recognized as sapeint, though. Cloning of humans and genetic engineering of humans is illegal in my campaign, and the actions of supervillains who violate these laws demonstrate why this needs to be so. Clones could certainly use magic, but what lets one person use magic while another person can't is poorly understood, and there is no guarantee that a clone of a magic-user will be able to use magic, although it is likely. Only a handfull of people (including Telios, obviously) have the ability to produce a physcially adult clone in a short time. Well, that's my take in a nutshell. Zeropoint

Re: How to build... Really big cosmic VPP's can be a problem in play for two reasons. One, the player will at times try to come up with a new power during play (that's what it's FOR, after all), slowing down the game while he or she looks up the specific power and advantages/limitations for the ability. Two, having the ability to do absolutely anything within an active point limit means that this character can do anything any other character can do, and do it better if the VPP pool is large enough. You might ask, "What is the character the god of?" and limit the VPP to that domain. This would still allow for a wide variety of abilities, without making the rest of the team superfluous. Restricting the player to abilities that he has already written up would deal with the first problem--he can still do anything, he just has to get it on paper before the game. Regarding Final Solution, his (its?) preferred method of combat sounds very lethal, which may not fit in with a superhero team. Also . . . 80 Megatons?! That would leave craters over a mile in diameter when he fired it! I guess if you don't have an active point limit, and stack a lot of limitations on it, it could be affordable, but . . . wow, 80 Megatons. Scary. Zeropoint

Re: Odd Champions campaigns I'll admit this is neither my idea nor particularly odd, but it bears mentioning: Start with the assumption that super-problems will be, as much as possible, handled with existing procedures and organizations. Then ask yourself what the following have in common: demons from the inferno, aliens from other planets, time travellers, powerful former Nazi supervillains, and incomprehensible beings from beyond the veil of reality. Well, they're all here causing trouble . . . and none of them are U.S. citizens. This looks like a job for INS, Division Six. The players would be members of Immigration and Naturalization, doing the same thing all their colleagues do: tracking down illegal aliens and deporting them. Their aliens just come from a little farther away. Zeropoint

Re: Help Needed!! The US Navy calls it "UA": Unauthorized Absence. Of course, you also have Missing Ship's Movement, and Desertion, in increasing order of severity. Zeropoint

Re: Speedster question Two problems with this: First, as already pointed out, in Hero, you get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. If your particular special effect suggests that you should have a particular ability...BUY IT! Second, while it IS possible to set up destructive vibrations in an object by exploiting the resonant frequency, there are two criteria that you have to meet. Obviously, you have to find the right frequency for your tapping, or sound, or whatever. If you're even a little off, it won't work. Also, you still have to supply energy faster than the object is dissipating it. As the vibration from a single tap spreads out through the object, some of the vibrational energy will be converted to heat via molecular-level friction. How much energy is lost this way will of course vary with the material: hard steel is very elastic, and won't absorb much energy, while wood (for instance) would. The vibrating object will also radiate energy as sound, if in an atmosphere. Well, as much as I enjoy waxing pedantic about physics, this isn't really the place for it, and I'm too tired to do it justice anyway. Anyway, game balance overrides physics. If the player wanted to do this ONCE, as a power stunt, maybe. If he wants a reliable attack, he pays for it. Zeropoint

Re: How to: Shapeshift I've interpreted the shapeshift rules to mean that Shapeshift vs Touch actually changes your shape (since touching something would, obviously, tell you what it was shaped like). Shapeshift vs Touch to look like a Klingon, and you have the forehead ridges. However, you smell like a Human, sound like a Human, and if you're Caucasian, your skin isn't dark enough. For a great example of what Shapeshift only vs. touch does, look at Plastic Man. he can change into any shape, but it will always come out red, yellow, and fleshtone. With shapeshift vs touch and sight, you can assume a new form well enough that a typical human with no extra senses would be extremely hard-pressed to tell the difference. You will probably need other powers to simulate a competent shapeshifter, although not necessarily. The T-1000, for instance, was restricted to a fixed volume and mass. Well, that's my take on it. Zeropoint

Re: WWYCD? #102: Something Followed Us Home... Special Agent Trent: "See, this is why I don't like supers." Trent sighs, and cradles his head in his fingertips for a moment. "Okay, give me everything you've got on the monster, and I'll see if my badge can get us some help." Zeropoint

Re: WWYCD #103 ? Deal with Evil Special Agent Trent: "Oh, of COURSE. The last time I got super-powers with side effects, it made my life SO much better. Would you mind waiting while I check to see if you're on a Fedral wanted list?" Zeropoint

Re: persistent movement powers? Ooh, buy your movement power as Always On! Zeropoint

Re: Tactical Question: How would your characters deal with these villians? Seeing as how they have a high-level telepath, Special Agent Trent would take one of two approaches: 1) stay as far away as possible, or 2) fold like a wet paper bag. Zeropoint

Re: godless fantasy In my personal take on things, magic works because the creation of the world has left the cosmos resonating with the fact that will can affect reality. Anyone capable of grasping this and applying their will properly can channel this "background noise" into magical effects. A "cleric" would just be a magic user who has focused on healing, purification, and anti-undead spells. Of course, as others have mentioned, being on the good side of a diety can have other benefits. Markdoc, your approach sounds a lot like where I'm going with my magic system, and you'vve covered most of the points I would make. Zeropoint

Re: Death with Dignity : An examination of the Golden Age That's why the intelligent heroine wears Comics Code Authority brand undergarments--they may not provide actual protection, but they'll protect a girl's modesty through any abuse! (saw this in an old She-Hulk comic) Zeropoint

Re: persistent movement powers? I recall someone mentioning a scene from "The Six Million Dollar Man" (the book, I think) in which Steve Austin walks out of the desert, literally asleep on his feet, with his bionic legs still slogging away. That sounds like persistent movement to me. In general, I would expect an unconscious character with active persistent movement powers to behave more or less like a car with a brick on the gas pedal--moving forward until something stops them, whether that be impassable terrain, running out of END, damage to the legs, or being knocked over. Oh, and if the character (edit: is asleep or unconscious), then yes, he will probably run off of the road. Actively seeking safety is taking positive action, and there's no one there to do it. Zeropoint