Jaxom

Re: Theory Discussion: Defense Alternative Re: Mike W's idea, I think you'd wind up trying to find a balance that looks like 1d6 rXD (any resistant defense, counted like KA dice) is going to cost 1-2 points or the system is going to get whacked, at least at the supers level. The reason the system gets whacked going this route is that the brick becomes an impossible concept. Now, although it has not been explicitly stated, Mr. Mullins has adopted the mechanic suggested by Hugh in some way and is now positing a combination of fixed and variable defenses. In terms of whether or not this merits consideration as a valid mechanic, I don't have any objections. The point of my response was that IT'S ALREADY THERE. It's not a requirement for anyone but the idea of variable defenses is already in the system. Armor limited to the amount of absorption rolled was already mentioned. If a player wanted to treat all his defenses or some portion of them as variable the limitation precedent already exists. If a GM, similarly, wants to use this for his characters and inanimate objects, it is certainly available. Regarding player builds a value is already pretty well defined (which covers the combat angle). The non-combat angle which was already discussed and largely discarded is trickier because the idea of giving an item DEF is not so straight forward in terms of point costs (but then it really doesn't have to be beyond balancing for the campaign). If you wanted to continue the discussion with regard to items which have DEF, then you'd need to examine the mechanics and what you felt was desirable which reopens the pandora's box of what is and is not combat mechanics. I think that's an answerable question and could be dealt with but has not been to this point in this thread. The crux of this though, which got ignored the last time I posted it, is that this is nothing new for the system. Variable defense and even partially variable defenses already exist in the system and players tend to avoid them unless they have a specific concept in mind. I don't generally support forcing the players to adopt the mechanic but if a GM wanted to he could require it just like he could say we're not allowing MAs in this campaign. Further, the value of the variable defenses limitation is already well defined in examples linked to Absorption in a number of characters in the literature.

Re: Theory Discussion: Defense Alternative It's interesting to see how the tirades here have gone... And yes, I think they are tirades... I'm not really sure why something that was put forth as a comment to provoke discussion got such vehement support and attacks... So here's the simple answer for Mr. Mullins as I see it. First, variable attack effects mimic the "how well did I hit it" mechanic. Granted it is separated from the attack roll itself and you can argue that perhaps it should not be or you can use a critical hit mechanic of some kind. You can also use hti locations which, again, are decoupled from the actual hit roll. Regardless of the exact mechanic that you choose, the attacker is rolling his own poison.... If he does well or poorly, the worst streak he has is "I don't hurt anything." Adding random elements to defenses brings a whole new problem into the game. It's been mentioned by some of the posters and in some detail. The main problem is the degree of variability but there are other problems as well. From a purely mechanical standpoint, variable defenses make it impossible to count on *any* defense. I could buy a suit of full armor and roll badly and get *zero* protection from it. A guy walks up and punches me barehanded and the effect is as if I had removed a piece of armor and allowed him to wind up on me. This *might* make sense for a knife finding it's way through a joint in the greaves, but it makes no sense for an open-handed punch. On the flip side, the current system means that an open-handed punch by a norm will *never* hurt a guy in full platemail. Seems to make more sense to me. Further, the platemail example above highlights the exact problem with variable defenses and degree of variability... Heck, take the EC examples of people who coat themselves in some element... A guy with Ice Armor. A guy with Stone Armor and a guy wearing full steel platemail. Assuming that the body coverage is complete, should they all provide an equal minimum amount of Body and Stun protection? I don't think so, but taking the naive 1d6 totaled like damage approach, they certainly all provide zero Body protection. To prevent this, you wind up resorting to fixed Body defenses with some sort of variability on top of them. But the system already *supports* that. Take normal defenses and then defenses with activation or variable effectiveness. Finally, the last problem with variable defenses is the player psyche problem that Cancer referred to. With variable attacks, the worst I can do is miss everything. With variable defenses, my bad luck doesn't keep me from hurting someone else... It makes me dead. We all have fights where we get unlucky and roll below odds three or four times in a row... Under the current system, your teammates mock you for being useless in the fight. Under a variable defenses scheme where defenses can go to zero the team instead helps you pick the concept for your next hero while they wash up the bloody spot where your last character was. So, the proposal brings nothing new to the Hero system. It would force players into a mechanice which they could already choose for themselves under the current system. It increases the randomness in a fight and it means that a streak of bad luck kills a character more easily than under the current mechanic unless you modify the attack/damage system at the same time.

Re: Killing attack question Re: Sylar's attack Monday night Well, it looked to me like he fanned them in the direction he though Peter was in. I'd go with the cone interptetation. The reason I asked though it this... He's using glass as a weapon of opportunity... If he had only one shard of glass, we're treat it like a real weapon and we'd say STR could only double its base damage. I think I got hung up on this because as McCoy mentioned, only one piece of the glass actually hit Peter but it leads to some interesting lines of questioning. There are lots of powers where using a bunch of projectiles makes sense but that way leads to madness. What's the difference between throwing one piece of glass (or one shuriken) with TK and throwing every single one in the room? For that matter, TK is priced basically as STR +ranged. What prevents someone from using normal STR to throw stuff? If a player wanted to scoop up a bunch of sand and make a flash attack by throwing it, would you allow it? What about picking up a bunch of glass shards and throwing them? Put a different way... I know we can take powers like EB or TK and take the appropriate Lims and Adders to get the Cone AoE effect with any amount of damage that we choose (regardless of the durability of the focus used, presumably because you could be hit by lots of individual pieces). Is it possible, using basic rules cannon, to make that same attack with raw STR and any combination of Adders you can think of? Throwing is covered in the rules but it focuses on throwing one big thing like a car or a slab of concrete. It *does* allow you to target a hex bt I don't have a reference handy so I can't remember how much damage it does in that hex. I don't recall any rules for making AoE attacks... I do remember, from brick tricks, buying Adders to raw STR for some tricks and buying other powers with STR-based SFX... But if I just wanted to do this with Raw STR, can it be done?

Re: Exoplanet detection news Interesting... With those numbers I would expect tidal locking for b and maybe c. The numbers don't look like any ratios I would expect though. C and d show a possible ratio of 6 or 7 to 1 which is also not one I recall being stable for resonance.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I can't believe people are taking time to wight these terrible puns. It's like your end ghoul is to make us all aghast. But you haven't a ghost of a chance. And if you start getting close, look out... It's possible one of the bricks could show up with a few wabbit punches and a wight cross. (Or a cross wight, for that matter.)

Warning, this contains spoilers from Monday night's Heroes episode. If you wish to avoid them, quit reading now. Ok so... Sylar is using TK, simple enough. He picks up a bunch of glass shards and throws them. I'd call what Sylar did an AE attack of some sort. It didn't look indirect. He did it with TK, which means you can just treat it as held weapons being manipulated with the TK. And he did it with a OAF of opportunity. Seems simple enough. .5d6 HKA found OAF wielded by telekinesis of at least 5 points, AE with a good location roll. To make it an AE with lots of shards, do you take something special that I am not thinking of (i.e. to handle multiple items) or do you just take it AE and treat the rest as special effects? What if I wanted to do the same thing by manually throwing the glass? I'm not terribly familiar with those mechanics. Is there a good writeup somewhere in 5E or FRED that someone can point me to?

Re: Imperialize it! Drat, I was gonna say X-files. Probably needs just a little work to clean that up...

Re: Imperialize it! Ok, I don't have Worlds of Empire, so I'll plead ignorance. Sorry for only having one there... I had a bunch more, but work intruded... Bridge over the River Kwai - Takes some handwaving... PCs are part of a rebel armed force, maybe on this planet, maybe wider spread. The handwaving is to make the bridge matter. You need the empire to move to electro-magnetic craft and avoid other, "messier" forms of flight. Then you need a planet with low magnetic field which means those typical "hover-sleds" and other magnetic tech don't work. Presto, instant war-flick where bridges matter. More coming when work lays off.

Re: Imperialize it! A variety of genres for your entertainment... Hogan's Heros - The PCs have been capture during a rebellion against the empire and sent to a penal colony on Tau Ceti VI. The empire is not totally corrupt and the PCs are required to work mines, but not subject to horrific conditions. Also on Tau Ceti VI are the Imperial Shipyards and Naval Command Station Alpha. While maintaining a well-behaved prisoner persona, the PCs must find a way to escape the mines, spy on both the shipyards and the command headquarters and send tight-beam radio signals to the Resistance on Tau Ceti IV.

Re: I need to brainstorm some anachronistic items Ok, I have to second spooky items which clearly should belong to the characters... The burnt-out shell of So-and-so's power armor... The personal seal of Chao K’uang-yin, conqueror of Japan and eastern Asia. The associated plaque recognizes him as the father of the Song dynasty, the first dynasty to conquer the globe and bring world unity. The USS Constitution, ironclad flagship of John Smith. Full Uniforms for various grades of crew on the von Doom Helicarrier. Bruce Banner's seminal text on quantum computing and advanced computer engineering. The American Eagle's (Norman Osborn) Flying Eagle, product of OsCorp

Re: Your occupation, please. Let's see, I had one who was poor and was a busser/dishwasher in a restaurant owned by another of the heroes... Helps if the Boss is with you when you're skipping your shift. Got one I'm working on right now... If I can manage the points for it, he's senior partner in a lawfirm specializing in international, corporate and contract law. Think of "The Firm". It'll be interesting to see how long I can manage to maintain mob/mafia contacts with my secret ID. (And yes, if you do it right it means Watched By The Mafia, Watched By The Bar Assn and Dependent NPCs (the whole firm) - even if you don't take the points for them - for quite a number of hooks handed to the GM to make your life miserable.)

Re: The PRE Brick? Ok, ok... I wasn't looking for wording, per se... I'm plenty wiseass myself and can easily come up with a bunch but like Roter Baron, I could only really come up with things to "stop" them or things to make them focus on me. Both of these are eminently sensible for the genre and I have no complaints about them. What I am looking for is *other* good PRick tricks. In rare circumstances I can imagine a "let's you and him fight" but that'd be few and far between. See, this is a 30-40 point power (40-50 points of raw PRE)... I don't want this to be something that is used once per fight... If we're gonna make this *the* trademark, then it should be something that happens at least every other action. The problem is with it becoming less powerful the more often you use it (unless someone can suggest a value for PRE - Only to offset repeated use penalties).

Re: Rocket-propelled Chainsaw Darn it, John! It's all well and good that you labelled it "caution, hot surface" but it means no huggin and no spoonin and they singe the sheets when they lie down... And don't even get me started on the exhaust!

Re: The PRE Brick? I thought about this one for a while about 4 months ago and I ran into a problem so I will ask here and see if anyone can come up with a solution for me... If you build a PRick, what attacks do you make? "Hold it right there!" is good enough to buy you a phase or two. "You have to go through me to get to them!" is another one that is good for the genre. Obviously this is gonna be situational, but what else can you think of ahead of time that you would expect to be in your arsenal? The reason I ask is because when I thought about building a PRick to join an existing group it dawned on me that "You have to go through me to get to them" was a death sentence... The opposition we typically faced would be able to down even a campaign-limit brick in a phase or two if they actually concentrated on him (as he just asked them to). It dawned on me that I either failed my PRE attacks, in which case I was a failure at my main schtick, or I succeeded, in which case I was lying on the floor a few segments later. Now, maybe that was enough time for my team to win but I didn't think I wanted to play the hero who always got the same line in the interviews... "I dunno what happened after that as they all ganged up on me and I was over lying on the ground."

Re: Rocket-propelled Chainsaw An undead mechanism? Why is it that all of a sudden I have visions of Steampunk in my head... Hrmmm... Maybe we should crosspost to the Seacouver thread in the Chamipons forums and suggest that his first adventure be the return of Henry Yesler and his Steam-Powered Rocket Propelled Chainsaws! Stay tuned for episode two and the return of John Pinnell, here to take more vengeance on the Northern Pacific Railroad (now the Burlington Northern)! (For those who don't know, John was famous for cornering the brothel market in early Seattle and when the NPR chose Tacoma as its terminus, making it a company town, they told him that he was not welcome. Maybe he can bring undead, steam-powered women of loose morals!)

Re: Rocket-propelled Chainsaw Hrmm, after rising from the dead like this are they undead rocket propelled chainsaws and if so, do you put the stake through the gastank or the drive gears?

Re: Keplers Conjecture I am assuming you are trying to build something like the inside of a cylinder and want to know how big a map to make it... Remember to allow for reach and other tricks if appropriate. diameter of 10m -> circumference of 10*3.14 meters (circ = pi * diam) that is 31.4 meters, call it 16 hexes for simplicity. 65 meters long... 32.5 hexes long If you're trying to fill the cylinder with hex paper, then I suggest a shredder and a lot of patience.

Re: Seacouver, Washington Some interesting bits that you might pull from the Seattle area as well... Pea Patches - Lots of folks here take a lot or four and maintain them as a community garden. That'd provide some unique flavor to your otherwise modern, flashy city. Lots (and I mean *lots*) of outdoors activities in the summer... There are festivals celebrating culture, art, music and a dozen other things, basically one a weekend between Memorial day and Labor day. U of S probably has a standing rivalry with UW, WSU or both. Every year, the Apple Cup (UW and WSU) gets a large turn-out of locals. Paul Allen, Paul Allen, Paul Allen... He owns the Blazers as I recall. He's got the Sci-fi museum and the Experience Music Project locally. He's got a yacht that could raise the property values of your port. I know people who commute from as far away as Olympia and Bellingham to work at Microsoft. If Seacouver is there and has a real highway, they'll be Microsofties there and in the mountains south. This will be doubly true if you replace the ferries with something else. Current underwater environments are well described at http://www.boydski.com/default.htm. Remember, not only is it cold, but it is dark in these waters. There are some excellent shots in the Neah Bay archive to remind you just *how* dark.

So, I'm trying to pull the trick seen in some movies, where the hero grabs the incoming fist and holds it. Then crushes it causing the opponent pain. If I use the rules in UMA to build a maneuver which is based on block and includes a grab opponent maneuver (1 limb) and tacks on some NND (defense is armored finger/wrist/ankle joints), I have the maneuver I want but I am unclear on one thing. If this was a martial grab, I could do squeeze damage as a free action in the same phase I grab. Since I am aborting to this "block", can I still do the free squeeze in the phase in which I abort or do I have to wait for my next (non-aborted) action?

Re: Skyguard Laser I dunno if IR is the right range of the spectrum here... I went looking for anything that would give it away and without doing an emission spectrum of the things that they listed as gaseous wastes, I couldn't get a good idea what wavelength they might be lasing. The important thing to know is that clouds are *really* good at reflecting IR across almost the whole range defined as IR as I recall (ask Cancer for the definitive, he and I were in the same Astronomy department)... The claim that this would work through a cloud means you've got to be picking something that has low absorption and scattering with water vapor at the least. That'd be an argument against IR. There was an interesting article which, among other things, compared cost-per-shot on various defenses that claimed firing this sucker was about $1k per shot compared to $100k per Patriot or other anti-missile missile. I dunno if those numbers are right at all, but it was an interesting claim and for all the flaws I can see with a laser system (Old Man hit the nail on the head... A good desert dust-storm knocks this on its ass right fast) it makes a very compelling argument. (The author was certainly not unbiased as he had headed the Israeli version of laser defense research, but it was still interesting...)

Re: Skyguard Laser The tracking should be feasible. The pointing I'm not so sure about... In theory, the military has done things like that before but I've never seen it available commercially. The laser would have to be something nasty... They're talking about helium and simple acids as waste products which is not ringing any bells but if you are looking for something that is not affected by clouds that would mean some specific spectral limitations. It's clearly not IR, Visible or traditional Microwave (all of which would interact nicely with water vapor in a cloud).

Re: Manipulating light and matter Keep in mind that by definition we talk about the speed of light in a vacuum. A Bose Condensate is quite definitely *not* a vacuum. That's not saying that the physics is not cool... Just keeping in mind that there is nothing here that says c is not still a constant. The idea of transferring data via light and then analog is not different either. This is more about the properties of Bose Condensates than anything about light. You all know how to use light to encode data into a physical medium and then use light to recover the data and if you don't you should go buy a CD burner (because that is exactly what it does).

Re: I'm mad at Killer Shrike So that means you could have KS: KS 18- ? Actually, it says in his profile (at least right now) that KS is 32. Regardless, we know he is legal to both vote and drink so he's at least KS 21+ even if he is lying about the 32.

Re: HELP - Multiple Martial Arts Styles Sorry to resurrect this after so long, but I finally got a chance to come back and look for it. I understand where Odd Hat is coming from regarding the Beast in "toad" form. Maybe I can use his example character to provide a better definition of the question. From his link, we have a character with "Lion's Road" style. That style includes some custom designed maneuvers. What if I want to use the old paradigm that some maneuvers are not compatible with other styles... So Leon goes out and learns Drunken style next for the versatility it gains him. If he cannot use certain maneuvers from Lion's Roar style when using Drunken style you could accomplish this using Lockouts. Now, what I need is a way to create a suite of powers and maneuvers which represent a "style" and a way to limit them all by requiring a fixed amount of time (I was thinking maybe a 1/2 phase action of incantations and gestures - the kata) to enter the style and make the powers and maneuvers available. This is particularly appropriate/interesting when something like Drunken style is very defensive while Lion's Roar is very offense-oriented. It makes a difference which one you are in when you go to abort to dodge, for example. (And yes, I recognize that Drunken style may not be the best choice there... I am ignoring the need to imbibe a bunch of alcohol to get the effect. If it makes you happier, use Crane style or something else instead. What I am looking for is mutally exclusive groups of maneuvers and powers and possibly characteristic adds, not a discussion of what the appropriate limitations are for Drunken style in particular.)

Re: HELP - Multiple Martial Arts Styles I've been thinking about this very problem for a PC I wanted to scratch up... For those of you who have seen Kung Fu Hustle, think about the last fight where the baddie is changing styles... (And for those who have not seen it, go out and rent it!) Based on the other thread (about multiform) I was scratching my head and thinking about other options... If I understand the suggestions here, you can either do all the powers (and maneuvers and stuff) that you want in a form and then give them lockouts (can't use in any other form) but I am not thinking of a "time to switch forms" limitation like the limits you'd have on a multiform or multipower (yes, you could do an extra-time limitation but then you'd have to add an "only on the first use" type clause and things rapidly get wonky). Alternatively I could do a multipower and make each form a complex slot but then I forget... Am I limited to the active point cost in a single slot or can I link 5 powers at the active point cap in a single slot? In both cases I wind up with the artificial construct of a base form with the minimum stats and abilities of all forms (i.e. 0 running, base STR and DEX and SPD) and then buy up from there which I can do but which has always bothered me for silly personal reasons. I think any build that provides sufficiently different forms is gnona have to be closely monitored to avoid munchkinning (for the same reason discussed in the multiform thread). The goal here is not to munchkin but to provide a very different flavor to each form... I suspect that the multipower is not a bad way to go since it makes learning a new form expensive (20-30 points in a fixed slot plus appropriate skills for the base form) which is an improvement over the multiform and it has the construct already in place for switching from one form to another over a fixed amount of time. Anyone got (and willing to post) a character who looks like the big-bad from Kung Fu Hustle or have more ideas on really wildly varying forms like you'd find in the wire-fu movie genre?