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Jaxom

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  1. Re: Damaging Block The rules for custome maneuvers don't allow you to abort to anything offensive (i.e. capable of doing damage or grappling). If you want this kind of power you have to go with the DS or the trigger although which you want to go with will depend on the final effect you want.
  2. Jaxom

    Quantum Powers

    Re: Quantum Powers If someone can suppress quantum uncertainty the universe falls apart in exactly the same way that someone who can manipulate it can break things. When all the electrons stop, bad things happen. That limitation is pretty meaningless as it is the equivalent of saying if you are in a 20d6 killing AE, then you can't use your powers... The point I was making in my post was that if you try to model this with the intent of allowing everything that is possible to be done you rapidly wind up with Dr. Manhattan from The Watchmen. A character who can do anything at any time with instant power-change. That's why I very carefully said, it's the right model and because there is nothing you cannot do if you manipulate things at the quantum level for macroscopic effect but if you really allow the character that latitude it's a campaign breaker. So instead of viewing his powers as a generic ability. Work out what things he's practiced and limit him to buying individual powers. As you said, with practice, you can refine and perfect what you can do. My intention as a player and a GM is to say, explicitly, that without practice and thought you are loathe to try doing it because of the ramifications of even the slightest mistake. Otherwise this character just takes every single point he is given and puts it into a Cosmic VPP without any limitations or perhaps a limitation on how many powers he has running at once based on some sort of ability to concentrate. To state it more theoretically... Quantum Manipulation is not a power. It's a background. If you try to build QM directly then there is nothing that it cannot do and it is equivalent to saying VPP - Exposed to Radiation.
  3. Jaxom

    Quantum Powers

    Re: Quantum Powers Once upon a time I thought about this concept... First, with this as the basis of your power, you can do anything. Transmutation, telekinesis, teleportation, spontaneous coronaries, disintegration, thermal manipulation... You name it, if you can cause essentially unexpected behavior at the microscopic or macroscopic level, you can do anything you want. First rule... No Cosmic VPPs. The power is so flexible that a VPP allows anything and can be argued up to instantly lethal values. View every trick or power to be an application that you have practiced and the points you put into it represent the strength you have available to manipulate the universe. Buy powers separately or in a Multipower, not a VPP or an EC. Depending on how detailed you want to be about the actual physics, you can define which forces he can manipulate and get a finer limit on what his powers might be or you can just go for four-color physics in which case the door is wide open... Thermal manipulation either as Change Environment or Energy Blast. Gravitational Manipulation as Telekinesis. Quantum Momentum Shifting as Telekinesis. Molecular Disruption as Ranged Killing Attack. Hardened Air/Quantum Wind as Force Wall or Force Field. Photon Scattering as Invisibility. Photon Lensing as Flash(sight). Quantum Soundwaves as Flash(hearing). Transmutation as Change Environment. Maybe with a variable advantage for what you can make. Chemical Manipulation of Brains as Mental Powers of all kinds. Sensativity to the Universal Waveform as Clairesentience possibly with Precog and Retrocog. If you can sense and manipulate the waveforms, especially on a large enough scale to be macroscopic, there are no bounds but the imagination.
  4. Re: Is this a legal Elemental Control? That is a separate but valid issue. The first time you are flying along and pull up to blast someone you'll be surprised when your GM tells you you are starting to fall.
  5. Re: Is this a legal Elemental Control? What is the basis of the powers? Force Field and EB I can see. Flight? Does the guy have ballast tanks in his suit with vents that jet super-heated air? Invisibility - Sight? With fringe caused by heat-haze? These are points you have to work out with your GM and to his satisfaction, not mine, but I am not sure how these are all heat related.
  6. Re: Legsweep Two points, one that I already made. Against a martial artist with a held action, the point is that you don't just stand up. He can contrive almost without fail to go twice before your next action. Second, Flash and entangle have weak points. Lots of characters have some kind of flash defense which has no delay before being applied. Strong characters can break a STR-based entangle as a free action just like Acrobats can stand up as a free action. And of course both of those cost more points than a simple Martial Throw or Legsweep. They're similar tools in the toolbox. The question is whether or not a cheap trick like Legsweep is overly powerful because it can be contrived to guarantee a prone opponent. I know I use it to devastating effect in our pulp campaign (which uses hit locations and a critical hit system) but since I have "Psych Lim: Won't touch gunpowder weapons (Total)" and the rest of the party likes .45s and Tommy Guns, it kinda balances out and our GM doesn't complain.
  7. Re: Legsweep Even with Breakfall to mitigate damage, the penalties for being prone are large enough that ( this almost hurts to say ) Sean's suggestion about "Prone Fighting" is probably a very good idea. Remember, a high-dex martial artist need only hold an action until DEX 1 of the phase before his next action. The held action is a Legsweep followed immediately by his next action on high DEX (and heaven forbid he has DEX - Only to determine initiative) which follows up with some big, nasty martial strike to the prone target. Sure, holding the action has some cost to the martial artist, but the payoff is large, especially if you are using any kind of critical blows in your system. (Sorry, Sean, must spread rep and all that...)
  8. Re: Legsweep I'd like to extend this question a bit... If I choose to incorporate legsweep into a multipower attack, say as a martial artist, do I get the advantages of having a prone target for subsequent power effects? Wouldn't necessarily have to be a martial artist, either... Legsweep followed by an entangle would be an equally interesting question. Legsweep is nasty enough for putting people prone (a disadvantage that costs a lot of people a half-phase in a lot of situations) but can be combined to really devastating effect if you have held actions or other tricks to immediately take advantage of a now-prone target.
  9. Re: Homo Sapiens and their guns Note that whether you like the NPC that was built here (and personlly, I agree with Ali that he's probably better statted and skilled than I would normally expect) that I specifically said to include the points for the weapons since in a supers campaign everyone is paying for all their equipment with points. Since we're talking a Supers genre, I have no qualms asking you to include those weapons in the calculations... So give me a couple of grenades, an assault rifle, a radio, etc. Even with the inexpensive build that Ali and I would favor you wind up with a *lot* of points. The point I was getting at is if you look at the equipment alone for SWAT or military, that should be 20-25 points. Add in a squad of 8 with teamwork 8- and you're combining three of the 8 attacks into a single attack. Yes, it should make a Hero pause and think. Not deadly, but you don't do the old Cosby routine either... "What was that? A fly? A Fly just landed on us?"
  10. Re: Homo Sapiens and their guns Two thoughts. Try to build a US Marine with full gear. See how many points it takes you (it was an interesting exercise for our gaming group for sure). We required them to pay points for all their equipment so that it could be compared to a supers campaign. I want my normals to be able to threaten the heroes (and villains for that matter). Not be seriously dangerous necessarily but to make groups like the mafia and the police something not to be ignored unless in special circumstances. Sure, normal bullets bounce off your armor but if need be they can call SWAT or military or whip out their illegal arms shipment and at least make you think whether or not you want to risk some STUN damage from them for pissing them off right now.
  11. Re: You can't move! Ha ha ha! Regarding Suppress vs. Drain, the price difference is because of the difference in duration. You cannot look at the same power levels because of active point costs but since SPD is one of those "all-or-nothing" powers, draining 1 point of speed is as good as draining 10. So take a 1d6 Drain SPD, recover at END of Turn or once per minute. Hit them once on your first phase, probably for about 3-5 END depending on how munchkin you got... This is as good as a 1d6 Suppress maintained every phase of your action for the entire turn. In part this is so painful because you're talking SPD. You only care about SPD during a fight so there is no reason to talk about times longer than a minute. Compare that to Drain EGO, recovers per week. Further, you get whacky SPD interactions... If I am SPD 4 and targetting a speedster, then I pay for Suppress on my Phases, not his. Alternately, if I am SPD 4 and higher DEX than a SPD 2 Brick, I can hit him on my 6 and 12 and *not* on my 3 and 9. Pick a different thing to drain, STR or EGO or something and look at the END cost compared to the duration of impact and you'll see in a heartbeat why Drain is so much more expensive.
  12. Re: You can't move! Ha ha ha! This is a special effects issue. Take a person who spent 60 points on Presence. They haymaker a presence attack. Even with the penalty dice for (probably) being at a disadvantage they are likely to cost him a phase. If they come up with an appropriate speech in character I'm even going to give them bonus dice ("You're outnumbers, come quietly" is not going to work but something like "Are you sure Dr. Destroyer is ok with you beating us all to a pulp?" would work wonders in a given situation). The issue here doesn't seem to be the points. It's that you've found overlapping special effects that bother you.
  13. Re: Opinions: A 'Hero' Stealing Their Gear.....???? With respect to the "less a hero" question, I think that the answer is to ask "what kind of campaign is this?" In a golden age, 4-color campaign I would say this should be avoided. In a gritty iron age comic I would find it par for the course. The key to this is going to be defining the change in character. If this person thought that stealing items from the museum was acceptible, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of museum property, then has anything changed? Is that still acceptible behavior? If not, why not? And does that mean that you should give the items back? The hardest part of this is going to be justifying why you are comfortable using these stolen items to punish other people who steal things. For example, one of my more interesting characters was a defense attorney who found an artifact which saved his life at a cost. Think of it as a come-to-Jesus moment. He's been *forced* to adopt a different life outlook and so he still maintains his lawfirm and is trying to keep that going without offending his clients while donning his mask evenings. Makes for an interesting cross between "The Firm" and a Dark Knight Batman concept. I dread the day the GMs start crossing threads from my background (a bunch of DNPCs, some Hunteds (Watching) and a Secret ID)... In general, I love the idea for the character but the hard part is going to be finding a good definition of the psyche the condones his/her own stealing and still is justified being a hero/vigilante.
  14. Re: You can't move! Ha ha ha! Ok, just thinking off the top of my head... Version I is a reasonable power to take... 60 active points with an expected value of 42 points effect. It takes out one target without power defense per action on your part. Compare this with 60 points of Presence attack... Pretty similar against a class of opponent. Keeping someone locked down takes repeated applications and it can be mitigated with power defense. Further, it is a visible power so nobody on the battle field has any question about what just happened... Hope your defenses are good. Version II is a bit more interesting... Personal Immunity? Not in the 60 point version. Can't use it on multiple targets surrounding you. Expected hit is 21 points and again is going to be visible power effects. This is not seriously different from an EB that is powerful enough that people decide to abort to something defensive like a dodge or dive for cover. Especially in a campaign where power limits are high enough for a 75-90 point version of this. Generally speaking, I find that most campaigns without external limits see speed creep. At the 350-point supers level or higher it is rare in my experience to see anyone, even a brick, with less than 5 speed. Your milage with this power is going to depend largely on what the typical character in your campaign looks like and whether or not you have placed any extra constraints on SPD in your campaign. On paper, it would fit in most campaigns I have seen without too much trouble.
  15. Re: Interceptor I've seen the mental illusions constuct used to trick someone into firing on a friendly. The problem with using it to trick you into firing on yourself is that I would make the mentalist find a very convincing description of why you'd knowingly put yourself in the blast radius (i.e. how did you distort space so he thinks this is a safe shot) or he's going to pick a different target. Regarding the forcewall idea, the issue is again why the attacker would continue with the attack. True IPE would work for me until he moved and figured out he was in a force-box. I think the assessment that the 1 point wall is sufficient is the correct one in some cases and not in others... Compare it to the breaking things rules for attacking through a window... I think that Sean's example is probably the best one and unless I am mistaken it is covered in the breaking things section. Different special effects would result in different interpretations. A beam, for example, interacts differently with obstacles than a real weapon projectile or an EB. Best I can come up with then is a case-by-case condition. Some tricks would work on some special effects, others would be required for other effects.
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