Dr.Device

Re: LOS Bouncing Clairsentience Stop Reading My Mind! No, really, just this afternoon I was wondering if LOS would be a legitimate Advantage for Clairsentience. I had never thought of it before. I was just considering a single "bounce," though. Weird coincidence. As to your question, my understanding is that officially Clairsentience can not be used to establish line of sight, so bounces after the first wouldn't work. I might well allow it in my campaign, though. On the other hand, to achieve the same effect, you could just by a lot of inches of Clairsentience, and take a limitation that the distance is calculated along the path, instead of straight line, and another one for the fact that the view point must be within LOS of the character, or the previously established viewpoint.

In a vacuum, pieces of metal in physical contact with each other will tend to become physically bonded. I believe that the mechanism is migration of atoms between the two surfaces, but I'm not sure about that.

There have been lots of discussions about this in the usenet group rec.arts.sf.science. You might want to check some of those out in Google groups. The above comments on smokeless powedered covered the firing issue, but two other issues you should consider are vacuum welding and sublimation of lubricants. Any normal lubricant is going to become worse than useless fairly quickly in vacuum as its volatiles evaporate, leaving the residue to gum up the workings of the gun. Without any lubrication, the gun's mechanisms would be subject to vacuum welding; the little bits of metal would become bonded together where they made contact. These problems are not insurmountable, and would probably have been dealt with early in the history of space warfare (if there is any) in your campaign. The main reason to keep them in mind is that it is unlikely that the same gun would be ideal for both vacuum and atmospheric use.

I would give the primary character the healing/resurrection power, to represent doing repairs on the robot. Just put a limit on it to only affect machines. Of course if you wanted a self-repairing robot, the regen option would be perfect for that.

Some shapeshifting characters logically need to pay endurance to change forms, but have no base form to revert to. Example: Doppleganger is blessed/afflicted with the power to take on the form of anyone he touches. The change costs endurance because it takes some effort. The change is real, and on a cellular level,and once completed permanent until he invokes the shapeshifting power again. Unfortunately for Doppleganger, he has no other way of changing forms. Since his original form is not around to be touched, he has no way of ever getting back to it. Logically, this character would have Shapeshift with the +1/4 Costs Endurance Only to Change Shape advantage + Persistent.I would also write this character up with Always On and inherent on this power, although I would make Always On in this case either -0 or -1/4 instead of the normal -1/2.

Why not just use Change environment with the appropriate modifiers and a custom limitation "penalties reduced by Mental Defense?"

Junior would be okay, but then all the sidebar powers would become Junior Samples[1], and I don't think any of us want that. I vote for reFREd. [1] No, I won't explain the reference. If you don't recognize it, consider yourself lucky.

One of the characters in my campaign has this power. People know that someone's there (although they're not sure of an exact location), but if pressed can't say who it is or what they looked like. The same character also has shapeshift with invisible power effect (I use the 4th edition shapeshift rules). People assume he is someone who belongs there, but aren't sure who. Then he has some weird powers on top of those.

Since Lingering provides a sort of pseudo-duration somewhere between instant and continuous, can lingering powers be purchased with uncontrolled?

If you take an advantage on the control cost of a VPP so that it affects all powers in the pool, how does that advantage affect the distribution of pool points? Example: A 20 point VPP is purchased with Reduced End (Zero End) on the control cost. The character wants a 20" flight power in the VPP. With reduced endurance figured in, this is a 30 AP power. According to the FAQ, that's okay, since the overage comes from the advantage on the control cost. But, without limitations, it's also a 30 RP power. Can he put that in the pool as is, or does he have to come up with -1/2 worh of limitations to make it fit? Would two 15 Base Point powers with no other advantages or limitations fit?

Probably not, but man, now I want to see that movie.

I have several questions about duplication. [*]Duplicate is necessary for a duplicate to have a different appearance than the original? [*]Can adjustment powers be used to affect the number of duplicates, rather than the base points of the duplicates? Is the answer different for Gemini (who has only one duplicate) and Crowd Scene (who has 8)? [*]If the answer to 2 is yes, what happens to extra duplicates when the points that allow them to exist fade? [*]Crowd Scene's player pays 15 points so that Crowd Scene has 8 duplicates. One of those duplicates is killed in a freak bowling accident, leaving 7 duplicates. Crowd Scene's player decides to spend 5 more points to increase the number of duplicates. How many duplicates does Crowd Scene now have? Fourteen (double 7)? Fifteen (double 8 minus one)? Or sixteen (starts fresh with the new point investment)? [/list=1]

My favorite near future weapon is from Snow Crash. Reason: A person carried linear accelerator with a suitcase-sized nuclear reactor as a power source. When all else fails, they'll listen to Reason.

According to FREd, the value of the variable limitation limitation is set when defining a power, then the total value of effective limitations that must be taken each time the power is used is determined by doubling that initial value. Since there is no dividing involved, it seems like Hero rounding should not be an issue. This raises the question. If a player wants a power which requires that -3/4 (or some other odd number of quarters) worth of limitations to be applied each time it is used, how does he do this? I see three options. 1. He can't. 2. Divide -3/4 in half and use hero rounding, for a limitation value of -1/2. 3. Take a -1/4 variable limitation, and just say it requires and extra -1/4 worth of limitations over the normally required -1/2. 4. Something I haven't thought of. I don't like to say that something non-abusive can't be done, so option 1 doesn't look good. Option 2 has the problem of specifically contradicting the book, since the book says that the effective limitations applied must equal two times the limitation value, so you should have to apply -1 worth of limitations if you are getting a -1/2 value for your variable limitation. That leaves me inclined toward number three, but I'm curious as to what the official ruling would be.

Are multiple applications of succor (maintained by continued END expenditure) limited as to the maximum number of points added the way multiple actions of aid are? For example, if a character has a 2d6 succor which applies to strength, is the maximumm he can add to his strength 12, or is it limited only by the number of applications he can make and continue to provide END for?

Darkness and Flash are both written so that you can not squeeze extra points out by buying them vs. a non-targetting sense then adding a targetting sense as an extra. Images, Invisibility, and Shape Shift[1], on the other hand, don't specifically rule this out. As written, one could buy Shape Shift vs. the Sight Group for 10 points, then add the Hearing group for an additional 3 points, making it cost 13 points to Shape Shift to Sight and Hearing. Or, one could buy Shape Shift vs. the Hearing Group for 5 points, then add the Sight group for an additional 5 points, making it cost 10 points for what acts as exactly the same power. A similar example would work for either Images or Invisibility. Is this, in fact, legal? Thanks for all the answers. Johnnie B. [1] Not officially a sense-affecting power, but close enough.

comparisons Geoff Speare wrote: The problem with this is that it is the ame value as 2 charges (-1 1/2), Costs endurance (-1/2), x2 endurance (-1/2), but is considerably less limiting. As a good rule of thumb, I would suggest that any power that can be used at least once, any time, at full effect and with no penalties, should not have a total limitation value of less than the value of one charge (-2) costs end (-1/2). If it doesn't cost enduarance, I would hold that to -2. For example, it would be silly to allow Burnout on 8- (-1 1/2), & 2 Charges (-1 1/2) for a total limitation of -3, since the combined limits are marginally less limiting than the -2 valued 1 charge limitation. Back on-topic, I can't see giving this particular limitation more than a -2, and probably just a -1 1/2.

The other way 'round How about coming at this from the opposite direction? Instead of messing with the Telepathy power, give all characters a mandatory (0 pt.) susceptibility to Telepathy at more than the +0 level of effect. Since you don't get your defenses against susceptibilities, Telepaths are vulnerable, too, if they are allowing themselves to be scanned. If they are resisting, their ego defense protects them only as long as it keeps the other telepath out of their mind. You can tune the susceptibility to meet the exact needs of the campaign, but I would suggest 1d6 for each +10 effect. Further, you would also need to decide if some characters could be allowed to buy off the susceptibility.