massey

You can get a bonus to attacking through using Acrobatics in an unusual way. What you're describing sounds mechanically more like Acrobatics than Breakfall.
 
Random story time:
 
I had a guy in football practice who as a defender would intentionally drop to the ground and roll forward to cut my legs out from under me. It left him useless for affecting any of the rest of the play and the tangle of the two of us lying on the ground blocked the area more thoroughly than I could have done on my own. He was doing it to make me look bad and because he thought it was funny, not because he thought he could do it during a game.
 
This had gone on for a number of days in full view of the coach without the coach telling the guy that he had to knock it off and play football. So I asked my coach how to deal with him and my coach told me to get "lower to the ground". I pointed out that the defender was rolling around on the ground and I was unlikely to find a way to get any lower than he was. My coach looked at me exasperated and told me to be creative as if I were the problem.
 
So next time the guy dropped to the ground and tried to roll forward, I forgot about playing my role as part of a football team and instead danced out of the way while kicking him repeatedly as hard as I could until the play ended. I figured if the other guy could forget about playing football and instead do something he thought was funny that I should as well.
 
The coach, surprisingly, was less than enthused about my creative tactics.

But having Luke bitter and hateful man who tries to murder a boy and burn all the texts... not so much.

Barring overwhelming positive reviews from critics, fans and friends this movie will not draw me to the theater. This trailer certainly didn't excite me.
 
TFA was a weak remake of the original but is had some small promise. TLJ had the same flaws as TFA( it was so bad in other ways that you barely noticed that it followed the plot of TESB almost exactly) while adding widespread incompetence to both sides, altering the personalities of beloved legacy characters, changing the physics of the universe, interjecting preachy political agendas and finally not delivering a single lightsaber duel hurt me so bad that I now can't watch the originals because I know the crappy future of my heroes.
 
I'll see it but they'll have to settle for whatever percentage they get from my cable subscription.

Back in 4th edition, you could build a 2d6 Energy Blast (NND, autofire, affects one hex) very cheaply as a focus and give it to a character with really high DEX (or skill levels) and effectively hit any target with 8-10 dice of NND damage every phase. I thought that was very abusable. Sonic Auto-Projector - the defenses are being deaf, the target having no internal body structure to disrupt (such as its body being made of undifferentiated plasma, chemicals, goo, jello, random swamp grass, etc.), or the target being unconscious.
 
Transforms are subject to abuse because you can make someone non-sentient or your devoted slave. So they're great as a GM to have the players face something unique or nasty. Not so great as a GM if you let a player have a pain-in-the-butt Transform that you have to deal with him spamming.
 
One really good Transform scenario is someone who unexpectedly gets a fully invisible, uncontrollable, continuous, AoE Transform which turns people around her into low-level superbeings (30-50 character points of powers). The players will have to deal with at least several dozen people being given superpowers (if she was a college student, for example, perhaps her boyfriend, some of the players' DNPCs, members of the team's fan club, some sorority sisters, frat boys from a party, her pot dealer, a teacher, the Starbucks barista, etc.), figure out a way to trace the "epidemic" back to its source, then cure her and everyone else whether they want to be cured or not (optional on whether the PCs manage to find them all). For a longer version of the scenario, the person with the Transform power could be kidnapped and forced to use her power for some criminal organization or could go into business for herself providing superpowered goons for the rich and ambitious. Or she could end up giving 30-50 point upgrades to existing villains.
 
Another Transform scenario, which I've never seen written up anywhere, is Dead Body Girl whose specialty is Transforming lamps into dead mutilated human bodies. Generally she's hired like an international hitman to go and plant a dead body on someone to frame him/her for murder. Then she arranges for the police to be tipped off so the target is arrested. Even if the target is found eventually to be not guilty, many times his life is ruined and he's broke from lawyer fees. This is a good one to run against someone who is needed out of the way for even a short period of time to miss an important meeting, ruin his company's share prices, ruin a corporate merger, stop a wedding. etc. Proving a dead body isn't really a dead body when it looks like a dead body even under a microscope is outside the skill set of most police forensic units. (Sometimes she dresses to match the look of the body she's going to leave behind and allows people see her alive so the "dead hooker in his bed" angle goes down better. Other times she'll just create the dead body under the shed where it'll be found. Some customers want something specific, others want her to be creative or do something unique. Most leave it up to her.)
 
Extra-dimensional travel which is useable against others is very powerful. You just permanently get rid of your target when you hit because most beings cannot cross through dimensional barriers. (sorry wrote this before I read the thread and saw it'd already been mentioned). Similarly, other movement powers which are useable against others are powerful. You could megascale flying and take your target out of the atmosphere, megascale tunnel someone deep into the earth, megascale swimming someone out into the middle of the Atlantic, megascale running so he can freeze to death in the Arctic (or slam him into a barrier at hyperspeed), etc.
 
I've always wanted some hero to use a megascale Leaping on others as an area of effect to clear bystanders out of danger. I mean, just one kilometer would move bystanders out of the vast majority of superhero fights. And the mental image I have of civilians leaping in all directions is hilarious.
 
Flash as a damage shield can be a nasty surprise for someone who is in hand to hand combat.
 
Gadgeteers can produce a lot of effects to help a team if the gadgeteer is willing to blow his phases doing it. A suppress movement gadget used on an opponent could help the brick teammate get in close when he couldn't otherwise. A Darkness bomb could set up a teammate who has vision powers. What gadgets would be useful really depends a lot on the powers of the other teammates and whether the gadgeteer knows in advance who his opponents are.
 
Opponents with a high DCV can be a pain in the butt. Bricks need to pick up large objects which can be used as an area of effect attack against those opponents. It's a classic but a lot of brick players either forget or try their luck at punching for a couple of phases before they resort to hitting the martial artist with a dump truck.
 
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As far as tactics go, some combats are "for fun" and some are "for your life or for the fate of the world". When the GM is throwing a fun scenario at you, each person on your team can each face off against one of the supervillains and you slug it out. When the fate of the world is on the line or you're facing a casual killer, you fight "dirty" (aka not like a super Boy Scout).
 
1) The team chooses to either "take out the toughest opponent on the opposing team first" and everyone attacks him or "chooses to avoid engaging the toughest opponent and instead picks the person on the opposing team who's most likely to go down if hit, everyone attacks him, then when he's goes down everyone targets the weakest opponent still standing."
 
So if you're fighting Superman, Batman, Green Arrow,  Plastic Man, and Wildcat, that's roughly the order of how tough they are as opponents. If you think you can take down Superman by everyone attacking him with their first phase, that might be a good idea since he's a lot more dangerous than all the others put together. But if you don't think the whole team working together can take Superman down in one phase, you start off at the opposite end of the list and everyone makes sure Wildcat goes down then Plastic Man then Green Arrow, etc. so the opposing team doesn't get to use those people's phases against you.
 
Mentalists and gadgeteers are generally the most fragile opponents, some will have significant high-powered forcefields or hugely armored costumes but many don't.  I recommend taking down mentalists first because they can seriously screw up your game plan, whether through bypassing most of your defenses or controlling your team in some manner. Ranged blasters are generally in the middle as far as being fragile goes. Bricks are the ones with the highest defenses, BODY, and STUN. Bricks who are highly mobile are much more dangerous than bricks who aren't (think of Superman who can race you to the ends of the Earth as opposed to the Thing who has to take the subway just to get to Brooklyn).
 
Adapting that strategy to gun fights, you might want to take down the person firing anti-tank rounds which can blow up your cover first then move on to the person firing area effect RPG explosives then on to people with automatic weapons then on to random opponents who are stumbling out of their beds with handguns. Alternatively, if the anti-tank weapon is firing from a bunker which you can't effectively attack at the moment, maybe you pull back around a corner to shelter from the anti-tank weapon as much as possible and start off killing the random opponents before they get organized and under cover.
 
You have to gauge each combat on it's own. A human-normal strength and fairly low DCV opponent who has most of his powers through an OAF (aka Sniper Guy) might be easier dealt with by taking away the OAF than by knocking him out if he has high defenses and superhuman levels of BODY and STUN.
 
2) One PC makes one of the bad guys fall down through a martial arts maneuver. While he's down and at 1/2 DCV, all the other PC's attacks that bad guy until he's knocked out.
 
Martial arts maneuvers which make the opponent fall or which gives you bonuses to disarm or takeaway what your opponent is holding can be very valuable to a team, many times they're more valuable than maneuvers which simply add damage or OCV. Opponents being on the ground is always good. Opponents are going to have OAF to take away or be holding the magic McGuffin which everyone on your team is trying to get.
 
3) Having a code word for Area of Effect attacks being launched is a good idea if teammates are in the area. They'll know to close their eyes against a Flash or dive for cover against other attacks. It's also a good idea to try to knockback opponents into an area when you know your teammate is going to go for an area attack.
 
4) Keep an eye out for incidental cover. Sometimes you can move so that you can fully engage your target but obstruct the line of sight for the other team's ranged attacker (stepping partially behind a car, mailbox, etc.)
 
5) Pay attention to which direction your character is facing since it's easy to lose track in a chaotic battle and have your back toward several of the enemy. Someone is going to take advantage of that at some point. And of course you should try to take advantage of enemies who have their backs toward you and try to maneuver the fight so that your opponent has his back toward your teammates.
 
6) If you're having trouble dealing with an opponent, hold your phase until after an opponent has attacked during a segment. Because he's already acted, he can't abort to block, dodge, or dive for cover and you'll know whether he can missile deflect or not. It really cuts down on his possible responses.

In general terms, I have a few suggestions.
 
--Always have one attack that is just pure dice.  Lots of advantages can be nice, but most of the time raw damage will be your most effective option.  Or at least it's a great fallback.
--Low damage special attacks with Area Effect can really inconvenience a group, setting them up for your heavy hitters.  A 4D6 Area Effect Radius Flash vs Sight can cut people's DCVs in half (but it won't affect everyone -- that's why your brick attacks the people it did affect).
--One of the most efficient character designs you can have will be to have a primary attack, a secondary attack vs a different defense, a movement power, and defenses to keep you from being Stunned by an average hit.  Add in a sensory power (radar, spatial awareness, etc), and the 4 to 5 most common skills your GM asks for (in my experience, Breakfall, Deduction, Stealth, Systems Operations -- but yours may differ).  Then take maybe one special defense at about 1/3 of your PD and ED (mental defense, power defense, etc), and a 3 point combat skill level with your main attacks.
--Hold your action on Segment 12, wait until your target has acted, and then Haymaker.  At the very least you'll make them abort to dodge on Segment 1, which costs them their next phase.  They were probably going to recover most of the Stun you would have done on post-12 anyway.
--Learn the Speed chart, particularly if you have a higher Speed.  Look to see when you will have an extra phase over your opponent.  That's your chance to try something risky/ultra aggressive.  Or to bait the other guy into doing something risky/ultra aggressive.
--If you have an attack that can do a good amount of knockback, aim your target at a very solid wall or obstacle.  Sometimes the wall will do more damage than your fist.
 

Well it wasn't clear Luke died, just that he... fell over for no apparent reason after acting like a completely different person than 3 previous films established him being.

IMO, I like the prequels way more than the current sequels.   And I loathed I and II (III not so bad)
 
So, far the sequels have been a knockoff remake of the original movie, and an abomination I need to risk felony possession of illegal substances to get through again.

I hated the last movie.  The preview looks pretty good, but I am very cautious now.

I hated the last movie.  The preview looks pretty good, but I am very cautious now.

I am a Star Wars fan.
 
I am not a fan of the surplus fanwank movies.

I dunno. That teaser filled me with meh. I don't know if any trailer can undo the damage done by The Last Jedi at this point.
 

Judging by the end, the villain is Darth Joker.

I once spent an entire combat running across the map (as the only non-ranged\non-mentalist on the team on a pretty large map) so I could finally, eventually, at last, Double KB some chump in to a very stout wall 2" behind him.
I think it was something like 18d and then another 24d from the KB. There were some other good double KB incidents but that's the one I remember most.
 

I have trust issues with Star Wars now
 

That’s just flat out mean!

It's tough to give good examples of tactics in Hero, because so much of it will be dependent on what powers you have.
 
Anyway, here are some nasty power combinations.
 
--A Multipower with Desolid in one slot, and Density Increase in the other.  Then take N-Ray Vision and some Flight outside the Multipower.  Go Desolid, and then fly through the ground, looking up with N-Ray at your target.  Now you can come up behind him and hit him by surprise.
--Tunneling + N-Ray + Ego Attack.  The "Mind Mole" character is tough to deal with.  Go down into the Earth and park.  Now you can look up at your target and blast with impunity.
 

"...and starring Guile as Captain America!"

Or is that more Johnny Bravo?

This is one of the nastiest powers I ever saw, though it was very expensive.
 
Desolidification, Area of Effect & Increased Area, Usable Against Others, Personal Immunity, Reduced Endurance
 
Go ahead, shoot him with an attack.  It goes right through him.  "Aha," you think.  "I'll shoot him with my Affects Desolid attack!"  It goes right through him, with no effect.  You see, he's not desolid, you are.  To affect him with an attack, you need Affects Real World (+2) on your power.  But why would you buy that, since you don't normally go desolid?  You wouldn't!
 
But for him to affect you, he only needs the regular Affects Desolid (+1/2) advantage.  Or none at all, since he has to choose a special effect that will pierce his Desolidification.  And he might as well choose a special effect that he uses himself...

"Weird Al" Yankovic's classic album Even Worse will be 31 years old tomorrow.

Interesting you should say that...my 15-year-old nephew listens to a lot of the stuff his father and I were into growing up: Scorpions, AC/DC, Ratt, Dokken, Motley Crew.  My brother and I took him to a Van Halen show a few years ago, and I made the comment to my brother, "Can you imagine us, at 15, listening to the stuff our parents grew up on?"  The answer, of course, was "no".
 
Classic rock is more than just old.  It's virtually timeless.

By the way, this was a damn good concert. 
 
REO opened with about a dozen songs. In between, Kevin Cronin would talk to the audience like we were just sitting in his living room having drinks. One particularly powerful story he told was about 9/11. The band was in Los Angeles at the time, with their next concert scheduled in Salt Lake City 3 days later. They made the drive up, not knowing if they would be ready to play or if there would even be much of an audience to play to. But when they got to the venue, there were 10,000 screaming fans waiting for them, and they said it was one of the most memorable shows that ever played. It was at that point that they felt like things were finally going to be okay again.
 
Chicago's set was even more impressive. They started by playing their amazing second album in its entirety. Even though it was out of order, they ended that part of the set with an absolutely scorching rendition of 25 or 6 to 4. It was probably a big shock to some of their johnny-come-lately fans to discover the Chicago was, in fact, a ROCK band back in the day.
 
The second half of their set was dedicated to a bunch of their hits, with only two from the 80s ballad era: "Hard To Say I'm Sorry" (complete with the "Get Away" outro) and "You're The Inspiration". There were a lot of great songs I hadn't heard in a long time.
 
All in all, a fantastic night.

No, it didn't. It only established that Coulson's a bit of a smartass who likes Dad jokes. Nothing more.

Our group started using a lot more combat options when I ran a high powered martial arts game.  This was probably 20 years ago, but it was a great learning experience for us.  Guys were running around with a 12 OCV and throwing 15D6+, with some of them having special moves that went even higher.  Think Street Fighter 2, with lots of crazy super moves.
 
Suddenly dodging, blocking, missile deflect and reflect, those were all really important to know how to do.  We learned the Speed chart backwards and forwards, and people figured out how and when to haymaker for the most effect.  People who came out of that campaign were much more effective in later games with other people.  As the damage values started getting out of control, people started to learn those combat maneuvers.

The JLA example shows how a lot of players will react.  I would think a lot of that comes down to the fact that you are offering the players a choice -- do you do X and win, or do you do Y and lose?  Most players are going to go with X every time.
 
Suppose your average fantasy team faces off against Alan Scott.  He's a high powered wizard, as far as they can tell, and he can beat them senseless.  In a stand up fight, they have no shot.  The players don't want to lose, they want to win.  Winning the game is fun.  Then one of the players recognizes who this character is.  "Oh wow, it's the old Green Lantern!  I know this guy, he's weak against wood!"  The players are now in a rough predicament.  Now it's theoretically possible that they could have figured out the wood vulnerability on their own, without anyone telling them.  It might have come up naturally during the fight, somebody could put two and two together, and then they defeat the villain.  But when they start off the game knowing the weakness exists, the temptation is extremely tough to resist.  After all, if they play it straight, they probably lose.
 
At that point, they can't really discover the vulnerability in the normal course of play.  It's like trying to solve a mystery when you've already seen the movie/read the book.  You know the answer already.  The best you can hope for is that your players will be skilled enough that they can act like they discovered it organically.  Maybe they can "sell" the fake discovery really well.  But that's all it will be.
 
Now, things like Dex, Speed, and DCV aren't all that important to keep secret.  You can, but often it's a lot easier to just say "he's DCV 8, and he's got 30 PD and ED" and let your players do the math.

Begging Trump not to do something is a great way to guarantee that he will do that thing.