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Re: Daleks??

The simple way: just write up the whole thing as a character.

The "realistic" way: write up the creature itself as a character, with the mechanical part as a vehicle, or maybe as a form of power armor.

From what I remember of the series and books, treating the driver and vehicle as a single entity would be about right. Neither can really take any significant action without the other.

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Re: "Magic" Through Scientific Laws?

It's an interesting idea, and I think that magic should have some structure to it, but if you break it down too far, the final product isn't magic anymore, it's just different science.

If you want young wizards learing about how the maximum mana that can be extracted from a gem is equal to the product of the square root of the gem's mass times the local mana level times a constant (which varies according to the type of gem being used), that will seem scientific. Then you could have them use this information to answer questions like, "Kasdreven wants to create a magical barrier covering five square meters, capable of dissipating 30 kilowatts and withstanding a peak power density of 2 megawatts per square meter. If the local mana level is 500 millithaumas, what is the minimum mass of an emerald capable of powering the barrier?"

Science deals with effects that are the necessary results of certain initial conditions. In my mind, one of the key factors that makes magic magic is the will of the user--the fact that something is happening not because it is the inevitable conclusion mandated by the laws of physics, but because you decided that it should happen.

Well, that's my take on it, anyway. Feel free to disregard.

Zeropoint

Re: -0 Limitations and Zero point disadvantages

I have enough disadvantages as it is, thanks.

Re: Help? Need power to counter shapeshift

Do small pieces of these aliens remain in human form once separated from the whole alien?

In other words, if I take a 1cc blood sample, will it change back into alien blood? Or would that be missing the whole point of the "Cellular" adder?

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Re: Some suggestions for FRED revised.

I don't know..."No temperature level Zero" seems to describe the berthing space on my ship pretty well.

But, really, the rules given there don't make sense without a temperature level Zero.

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Re: The Age of Man: Need Help!

I can't remember where I read this, but I've heard of two versions of the "black dog" that were genuine guardians.

In the first case, a person travelling at night would sometimes find himself being stalked by a black dog of immense proportion. If he tried to leave his intended path to avoid the dog, it would "herd" him back in the original direction. Just about the time the poor traveller was about to collapse in fright, the dog would mysteriously vanish, leaving the traveller to continue on his way.

That was the last the traveller would see of the dog...but he would later hear of a group of bandits who were planning on killing and robbing a traveller--himself!--but were warded off by the traveller's fearsome canine companion.

The other example was called a "kirkgrim" or something like that. Apparently it was believed that the first being to be buried in a new church graveyard would be tasked with guarding the graveyard against whatever might threaten its sanctity. Obviously, it would be a bum deal for a person to be stuck with eternal guard duty instead of going on to their reward, so when a new church was built, a dog was buried in the graveyard. This dog's spirit would manifest in the classical calf-sized, coal-black, red-eyed form when the graveyard was threatened.

These stories appeal to me because I like the idea that even when something is "on your side" it can still be bone-chillingly frightening. I suppose, technically, that the dog guarding the cemetary isn't really on anyone's "side".

Zeropoint

Re: Battlemech Weapons to Hero

Actually, now that you mention it, Battletech armor might be best represented as extra BODY for the unit in question, giving them no actual Armor at all!

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Re: Battlemech Weapons to Hero

A couple of notes here:

Regarding the armor, if you're being true to the original game, it's all ablative armor. That way, any weapon has the potential to bring down any mech, if you can shoot it enough.

Second, if you regard the computer games as a source, the missiles can be fired indirectly without a spotter by locking onto the target, then firing the missles up or to the side. Being homing missles, they would then arc around to the target. I liked using this technique to take out stationary targets from behind cover. I've also heard that you can sometimes get missles to overshoot a target and strike it from behind like this.

Zeropoint

Re: Detect Emotions

Well, the "detect mental tampering" aspect is potentially useful, but you could conceviably knock this guy out with Mind Scan!

Re: Detect Emotions

Is your character Shockwave from 4th ed CU cos he ha 2x sus mental + Beserk 14/8 attacked by mental powers, apparently he stole gift and used himself as a human shield for the residant mentalist, due to her mental powers (10d6 mind controll).

 

In the comics auto detect mentalist attacker is not the norm.

No, my character is my own creation, although I won't claim that he's particularly original.

Special Agent Michael Trent, FBI, was working a case and had the bad luck to stumble onto a VIPER operation and get himself captured. That particular nest was experimenting with a process to grant psionic powers to normals (which would obviously be an overwhelming advantage), but was still in the early testing stage. They used Trent as a guinea pig because at this point, the subject was not expected to survive the process, and there's no point in wasting one of your loyal troops when you've got a spare G-man handy, right?

Somehow, the process worked...mostly. Trent was granted powerful psychokinetic abilities, but having these powers wedged into a brain never meant to hold them caused some damage.

First, his aggression center is too active, and in combat, he has a tendency to lose track of his goals and concentrate on hurting his opponents as much as possible (which is usually quite a bit, with a 16d6 psychokinetic energy blast).

Second, the structures which manage telepathic contact in his brain are now cross-wired into his pain center. The result is that he can feel any mental contact--it feels like someone jabbing a soldering iron into his head.

Third, those telepathic structures are also connected to the aggression center, so even if he can accept, "hey, someone's messing with my head, and it freaking HURTS!", the mental contact can sometimes trigger an aggressive response directly.

He's also cranky and irritable, although it's not clear whether this is caused by brain damage, or by the fact that since the incident, he's only been getting lousy assignments, like babysitting dangerously chaotic super-"hero" teams.

While he's fairly powerful in conventional combat, mentalists can mess him up pretty badly.

Zeropoint

Re: Detect Emotions

However if the power is able to determine exactly that the emotion is then the best route would be the telepathy route. This method will actually reach into the person's mind and allow the psi to state with much more certainity what the emotion is. However MD will stop the attack, the person read will know that the psi is reading them, etc according to full telepathy rules.

And characters with Susceptibility: Mental Powers will get a splitting headache. Characters who also have Enraged by Mental Powers 11- may decide that the psi character should share the pain.

I have a character (currently inactive) with those problems.

Also, if you were detecting my emotions by reaching into my mind and reading them directly, I would consider that to be an invasive power, an invasion of privacy, and possible telepathic assault. On the other hand, if everyone is "broadcasting" their emotional state, and it just takes a passive reception power to pick it up, that's a different matter. I guess this depends on how you're working psionics in your campaign.

Zeropoint

Re: What comic book villains would make cool heroes, and vice versa?

Thor already IS a nordic thunder god.

Re: What Would Your Character Do? #66

Special Agent Trent would raise his force field (if it wasn't already up) and demand that the woman stop what she's doing immediately. If she didn't, he would consider the mind control (pheremones wouldn't occur to him) an attack, and respond with his psychokinetic energy blast.

Trent hates telepaths. Telepathy hurts.

Also, the portions of his brain responsible for receiving telepathic effects have been cross-wired into the portions responsible for aggression, thanks to the incident which cursed him with his powers. The red woman is lucky she didn't start with him.

Zeropoint

Re: Cross-gender roleplaying

I think that "gender" is more appropriate for what I meant, because it carries the connotations of psychological and social differences, which affect roleplaying much more than the biological differences.

I specifically mentioned Ripley not just because she's a tough female character, but because the role of Ripley in the first movie was originally written as a male character, and when Sigourny Weaver was cast, the script wasn't altered. (at least, that's what I've heard.)

---

So far, from reading the responses on the thread and following the links that people have provided, this is what I've got:

1: Remember that a woman (or man) is a person, just like you are.

2: A woman (or man) is not defined by desire for sex.

3: Women tend to consider relationships with others more important than men do.

Zeropoint

Re: What would you character do...

Special Agent Trent isn't a superhero (in his eyes), he's federal law enforcement. The FBI would probably have some ideas about how to use him, and he'd follow orders.

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Re: Supervillain Images

The smoke coming from Tyrannon's eye (is that actually an eye?) is a particularly nice touch.

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Re: Can you suggest some powers for these images?

The dragons could be AI's capable of attacking on their own, or providing other kinds of support. Maybe they detach?

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Re: What character concepts make you cringe?

I quickly realized that regeneration was an extremely useful power to have at a low level. The basic ten-point version (in 4th Ed.--I think it works out even cheaper in FRED) was pretty useless in combat at one BODY per turn, but it guaranteed that you wouldn't have to spend a month in the hospital after a fight. Otherwise, it's going to take about six weeks for a broken bone to heal, and probably longer for extensive soft tissue damage.

Zeropoint

Re: Telekinetic Silly Putty!

This sounds like a shapeshifter with a cool special effect to me. You might look at growth. You could also throw in a movement multipower, with running, gliding, swimming, flight, and maybe swinging. How often do you really want to use two different modes of travel at once?

Zeropoint

In another thread, the subject of players with characters of the opposite gender came up, mostly in the form of horror stories. I'd like to find what we know about doing it right.

First, in my experience, I can play an acceptable female (despite being male myself) by concentrating on playing the character as a person first and a woman second. It seems to me that gender wouldn't be a factor in most roleplaying decisions, except (of course) when dealing with other character's advances. I can't claim any deep insights into the female mind, but at least I haven't had anyone complain about my portrayal of females. (except in the rare case in which cross-gender roleplaying just creeps them out).

Now, some questions:

Is it really possible to make a viable female character by taking a male character and just flipping the gender bit? It sure seemed to work for Ripley in "Alien". Does it work the other way around, for females with male characters?

Are there any pitfalls to avoid in running a character of the opposite sex? Are there different issues for male/female and female/male combinations?

Likewise, is there anything in particular that would make such a portrayal easier to grasp or play, or make it seem more realistic?

And how do you cope with other players who either can't take your character seriously, or find the whole concept deeply disturbing?

As usual, I provide more questions than answers to this forum, but I hope that you'll enjoy discussing this.

Zeropoint

Re: What character concepts make you cringe?

I'm male, and have played a female character several times. In most cases, it doesn't seem to make any difference, as if the gender of the character is completely irrelelvant. I don't know whether this means that I can't roleplay females, or that individual differences are more important than a character's gender.

On the other hand, I've encountered a male player with a male character who seemed to think that my character existed only to be the target of his sexual conquests. I also had a character who wound up running around behind the scenes, keeping the town from falling apart while the men doing "guy stuff", and being the only person who would bother talking to the NPC's or trying to comfort the girl that we rescued. That was interesting, although I don't know how much of that was because she was female, and how much was because I had decided not to give her very many combat skills.

Hmm. This subject could use it's own thread. I think I'll give it one.

Zeropoint

Re: Things a wise super hero should NEVER say

Using "Bite me!" as a taunt...while fighting a vampire.

Re: What Would Your Character Do? #63

Special Agent Trent would be both sympathetic and wary. On the one hand, he's intimately familiar with being turned into a super by someone else's actions. On the other hand, a "small child" with that kind of power is going to be extremely dangerous, as Avatar pointed out.

Trent would try to talk to the ex-kid and get a feel for him, but he'd be prepared to take him down if he had to. Trent's had too many dealings with criminals, super-villains, and unstable superheroes to have much faith in human nature.

If a fight doesn't break out, he'd like to have the individual in question talk to a psychologist/psychiatrist for a while, along with the parents. If the kid seems stable and responsible, it would be wrong to force him to change back against his will. If, on the other hand, the kid is a threat to society, do what you have to do.

But will the memory of being forced back fester in the kid's mind, until he gets his powers and decides to take revenge on those who stole them in the first place?

Zeropoint

Re: Your Character's Greatest Fear?

Special Agent Trent has psychokinetic powers crammed into a brain never meant to hold them, leaving him somewhat unstable. He lives in constant fear that the next time he losing control and killing someone.

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Re: Variable SPD: how do you model it?

Oops. Yeah, I forgot about the "costs END = non-persistant" part.

Even so, I'm starting to think that Succor is really only useful if you want to be able to do it to someone else.

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