For what it's worth, even a bandana (doubled over) will protect from spreading droplets.
_However_ --- and you wouldn't believe how many times I have had this conversation with really thick-headed people:
masks can also HELP SPREAD disease. No; I'm not kidding: surely someone else here has medical in their background: if you aren't changing your mask every time you change locations, there is an excellent chance you are spreading disease, even if you are protected from it.
Let me break it down this way:
A mask is a filter. As air is drawn through a filter, things that are "filtered out" get trapped on the outside because they can't get through.
As air is pushed back through a filter, things on the outside of the filter get BLOWN BACK OFF, you friggin' redneck idiot!
Oh, sorry..... Flashback.....
No; not in their entirety-- some will stay trapped or at least better-adhered to the mask. _Some_. But not all. Not even half will be trapped, if it's a really high-quality filter (they are much less porous, meaning it's harder for things to get lodged in it).
This is the reason that masks and other PPE are so damned critical in a healthcare setting: They have to be changed each and every time they change patients, or they _will_--- not "may," but _WILL_ carry any contagions from the first person to the second and each subsequent person.
It works the same in every other possible situation: the more places you go, the more chance you have to get you a nice slathering of COVID all over the outside of that mask, and the more places you can blow it back off all over potentially uninfected people. Go you, you big damed hero, you.
So remember: if you _really_ want to help spread Covid or any other microbe-caused ailment, put on a mask and gloves, and _leave_ them on, unchanged, as you run to the grocery store, the drug store, Sprawl-Mart, the gas station-- wherever it is you just _have_ to spread illness and death. Only got one mask? Then use it in only one place: stay your happy ass at home!
In my own news:
Second week drawing to a close. Still asymptomatic. Not being a moron, I completely understand that doesn't mean I don't have it: I could develop symptoms later, or possibly even be one of the fortunate few in every illness that simply doesn't develop symptoms.
I know someone posted that meme a few days ago: "Check on your extrovert friends; they are not okay."
This is Gospel Truth. I can't afford to sit _my_ happy ass at home, and thus far, both jobs have been accommodating, if in varying degree: primary job (the "Good" job ) has set me up doing straight-up equipment operation (which was only a small part of it before) and unloading trucks. Truck pulls up, I hold up a large sign that says "I have been exposed; call [my cell]" The sign is _huge_; I never have to get within fifty feet for them to read it. I wear a glass-worker's respirator with changeable filter pods. All the time. I feel like that tall skinny guy with the big coat in that Batman movie. I burn the pods in the incinerator when I change them.
At any rate, I hash out with the driver that he is to un-secure everything on his truck and then get back in it. I unload it. I stop and spray down the whole damned truck with bleach when I'm done. I do not touch his securing equipment (though I do bleach it. So your chains will get a bit more surface rust; I'm sure you don't mind). I mean _everywhere_, not just where I might have been.
He snaps me a picture of the BOL and the packing slips (if they are not on the pallets / materials) and texts it to me. I use that picture to check in the material, edit the photo with my signature across it, and text it back to him and e-mail it to the company from which the material was ordered. I e-mail a copy to my office, where someone else finished the paperwork (usually the guy who is normally unloading the trucks). He prints it and files it, etc.
there are currently three other guys doing my inventory counts; all my spreadsheets have been e-mailed to me; I do it all from my phone with a blue-tooth keyboard: data entry, order estimates, purchasing, and all that entails.
I spend a minimum of fourteen hours a day at this job. There are a lot of aspects of my job that I can't do-- at least, not until we know I'm safe. I'm trying to remote-train unskilled laborers to do bookkeeping, inventory management, projections, etc. It's not easy. The bright side is that the boss reports forklift bites are at an unprecedented low (go figure: I've only got forty-something years of equipment operation in my background and I tend to go to work every day with a lunchbox and a fresh can of give-a-damn. Beyond that, the Book tells me that if I truly honor God, then I will always do my best in all things. I can't remember a time when I didn't, even if my best sucked, I _knew_ it was my best.
As I said, I spend a minimum of fourteen hours a day here. Forklifting isn't my favorite thing in the world, and it takes ninety-minutes to _truly_ bleach it down, too boot. I don't mind the skidder, but there's not a lot of work for it at the moment (and it takes like four hours to know I've bleached every square inch of it anyway!). I miss King Raoh. No; a pan loader (earth mover for those unfamiliar with the proper name) isn't a lot of fun, either, but if I've got to be by myself, at least it's noisy enough to keep my thoughts away. Besides, when you're done with a pan loader, you can point to an actual accomplishment. And I have to confess, driving over trees is _way_ more satisfying than you think it is. The guys out working the dirt for the new plant have all thanked me for what I've done so far, but have specifically asked that I not be back out there until we know I'm good, so no more King Raoh for a while.....
The other equipment-- don't have a lot of use for it every single day, and as I've alluded to: disinfecting most of these things is _hell_. Fourteen hours a day, two weeks since I was exposed. I haven't been within one hundred feet of another human being, unless you count talking to my family through a closed door.
Absolutely _not_ bragging here, because I actually _hate_ the damned thing, but my house is enormous. When we moved to this area (it's where my wife is from), we had forty-nine acres of woods and a six-acre pond with four spring heads in it. Nice and quiet. Private. We had a little brick two-bedroom house that I tore the roof off and added an upstairs to, giving us another bathroom and three more bedrooms. I loved that place.
Then the house she grew up in came up for sale, and --- well you know the "happy wife" thing, I'm sure.
So now I live in a freakin' three-story house with cavernous rooms- enough rooms that honestly, after fifteen years of living in this house, two of them still have absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
All that on a 3/4 acre lot. Seriously. My wife's father (rest his soul) was a doctor, you see. A doctor who loved hosting parties, hosting guests, and hated yard work. Our first dress-up date was his funeral. Yeah, it's maudlin, perhaps morbid, but death is a perfectly natural part of life; we can't pretend that maybe one of us is going to get out of here without it.
Currently, I live in the garage. Seriously. There is a full bath off the garage. There is a spare washing machine in the garage (originally bought for cloth diapers, which for some strange reason we still own-- so hey, you! Toilet paper hoarder! HA-HA-HA! You spent what? Eight hundred bucks on toilet paper? I spend twenty-five bucks on a used washing machine and ten bucks on two cases of bleach. I don't remember what the diapers cost, but I'm betting it was less than you spent on your horde of toilet paper.....
I have blocked off the air vents and the air return (and sealed them, just to be safe) that feed the garage (yes; the garage is air-conditioned-- or was. I told you: my father-in-law did _not_ like to go outside. ) to make sure nothing gets into the air system for the house. I have sealed the door between the garage and the house. It's no big deal: I can replace the door if I get through this.
I spray the thing down top to bottom when I get home, and again before I leave in the mornings. My kids put my supper and tomorrow's lunch on the stoop outside the side door (which I bleach the ever-loving _hell_ out of, every few hours, just in case). They leave me two quarts of coffee.
I haven't seen them other than video calls for two weeks. I can hear my daughter in her room (it's right over the garage) practicing her singing as I write this (she has choir in school, and a clever teacher who has figured out how to do it remotely). I can't sit in front of her and smile or clap. I just hear the muffled singing.
I haven't laughed or shared a joke with another human being in two weeks. The guys at work -- the ones that are usually under me-- are starting to loaf because I'm not there to scare them back straight.
I haven't laughed; I haven't shaken a hand or patted a back or flashed a smile or seen a twinkling eye or whispered conspiratorially or in any way touched another human being in two weeks. I am sure some of you dream of that.
I am an extrovert. I did not have to die to go to Hell. My daughter is still singing. It's killing me.
At this point, I am almost hoping that I won't develop symptoms. Two of my co-workers (exposed by the same idiot that exposed me) are sick. They are both positive. The last I heard, one of them may be hospitalized: he has sickle-cell anemia, and evidently that makes it worse; I don't know. I know it does affect immune response. They are young, and things look good for them. I don't know why I haven't started to show. It makes me hope, but not too much.
Other than my wife, I think I have mentioned this to only two other people-- one I consider a very good friend, and I don't have a lot of people I think that highly of (no offense; I don't know you people ). I am sixty. I look back at my life. I have made an lost two fortunes. I have had four children and buried two (and their mother). I have ralsed my youngest siblings only to have them forget I exist; I have "close family" I haven't heard from in thirty years. I have built things and had them smashed and repeated the cycle over and over until I am just too damned old and too damned busted up to do it again.
I look at the plans I had for my life, and where my life went-- how everything turned out---
I see all these people panicking, doing any stupid thing they think my keep them alive-- stocking up on toilet paper; hoarding eggs, blaming politicians (how many do we have to blame for this to magically go away, anyhow? How the hell does breaking out the ol' Blamethrower _ever_ help? _EVER?!)
and I realize that I really don't care. I really don't care one way or another. The world is a complete wreck, full of self-absorbed nitwits who, like me, will not rate so much as a footnote in history-- why do any of us deserve anything more than a coin flip? I hear stories about people stealing masks and meat from old ladies' shopping carts and fights over bleach-- it's not like I have any interest _at all_ in a world full of these people! Who the hell _would_?! Why are we fighting to save them? Or ourselves? Every single one of is someone else's complete dickhead, did you know that? Every one of us is someone else's useless meat bag, wrapped in skin that would better be used by burn victims. Some of us are better at pretending otherwise, or at deceiving ourselves, but ultimately, should I live (and daily it seems more likely that I will), I _still_ won't give a rat's rolly red rump about the bulk of the jerks in the world---
Jeff Bezos makes something on the order of thirty-two million dollars A MINUTE and yet he wants those of us working ninety-plus hour a week jobs to donate to help his 800,000 employees....
Someone who cares: do the math. How long, at thirty-two million a minute, would Jeff Bezos have to "work" before he could afford to give each one of his employees a million dollars? Ignoring that fact that he could do it right f'n _now_ if he wanted to....
I don't care. If I get it, I get it, and honestly, there's a lot about dying that, at this point in my life, is remarkably comforting.
In other news, since I am still asymptomatic, I have decided to try something new: after being convinced that I could fit it in, I joined pbemguy's Top Secret game. I haven't made a character for _me_ in over a decade, and looking him over, I'm pretty sure he's cannon fodder, but what the Hell?
The company I work for (the good job) has been amazing, not just for me, but for all the people that work there. There have been meetings-- not just with the owners and us management types (oh-- another new thing: conference-by-phone. Can't say I ever want to do that again), but with accountants and attorneys, etc.
And me having to quell the young guys (again, by phone: I wish these dummies would learn to "pass it on;" I can't field two hundred copies of the same dumb question every day! I'm busy!
The biggest complaint from the peanut gallery is "but they keepin' us here workin'! All they care about is they damn money!"
Idiot children: That man is here, with you, with us-- every damned day. He is the _only_ person in this company with longer hours than mine. The only damned one! He is high-risk because of age and high-risk because of health, but he is here-- not locked in an office, but out here amongst us-- every damned day. Let's put this in perspective: I don't think anyone here really appreciates just how wealthy he is-- I rattle off just what _I_ know of, and eyes bug out. That man could close this place _forever_ any damned time he wanted to, and not only would _he_ never have to work again, his great-great-grandchildren would _still_ be millionaires!
The only reason this place is still open is because he is genuinely concerned about _you dipshits!_. Look over at that parking lot! How many six-hundred-dollar cars do you see? Like maybe a hundred of them? How many of those six-hundred-dollar-cars have two-thousand dollar rims? Like ninety of them? (voice in the back: "Sheeeiiit! Mine's costed like thirty-two hunchrit!" No; I'm not making it up: that was a quote, and I can even tell you the kid's name. I actually like this kid, but it kills me how quick he caves to peer pressure.... ) (another voice: "Y'all stupit! Das why I _rent_ mines!" Seriously: three weeks ago, I learned you can _rent_ rims.... Why do we think we all want to live through this, again? )
How many of those six hundred dollar cars with two -thousand-dollar rims have thousand dollar stereos? Roughly every damned one of them? Am I close? Now how many of the people who _own_ those cars have more than fifty dollars in the bank _right now_? (silence) How many of you financial geniuses, who have invested so wisely in rims and stereos can make your rent, or your lights, or buy your babies some damned food if your paycheck is late even _one damned day_?
This has been going on for weeks, and there's been talk about shutting down the whole damned country ever since California shut down, and how many of you have been laying in some extra groceries or putting extra money aside of even pre-paying some rent? How many?
Not one damed person.
_That's_ why we are still here, and still working: _exclusively_ because an incredibly wealthy man-- the kind who you love to bitch and complain about-- actually _cares_ about you dumb-ass baby makers and your total inability to see further than the liquor store you cash your check at.
Seriously: this company has been great. Work has been "Volunteer only" since before I got exposed. Volunteers are getting a little extra, as with the reduced work force, there's more overtime (also volunteer only). The meetings with the accountants and the lawyers was to find out what grants and emergency funds were available to help provide full paychecks to the guys who have opted to shelter at home (no questions asked). The owner is making up the difference from his own pocket. Further, he's lined up people to come and speak to these dumb ass kids about financial responsibility, saving, investing-- learning how money works. No; I'm not kidding. He's been great.
Every two hours, we stop (they stop: I'm not with them anymore, at least not for another two weeks, until we know) and bleach the entire plant, top to bottom (for what it's worth, at a 10/1 water-to-bleach ratio, it takes thirty-six gallons each time). I mean equipment, hand tools, everything. I was part of the project to restructure work flow so that no one was cooer than ten feet at any moment, and most of them are fifteen feet apart, so long as they follow the rules. There is a guy who wanders the floor doing nothing but checking temperatures every hour, sanitizing the men's room and the secure equipment rooms when he's not making his rounds.
I can't say enough about the good job. Oh hey-- here's another thing:
We build portable buildings: everything from storage sheds to classrooms to those little guardshacks you see all over the place. We build those. We have converted one line to build additional waiting rooms and triage units for local hospitals: the owner is paying for those out of his own pocket.
Today he wasn't on the floor, which is odd.
He spent most of the day in his office, calling each and every employee (we ran a skeleton crew today; not unusual on Fridays) who was going to be laid off (we got our shelter-in-place order today) for the duration _personally_, getting their cell numbers and texting them a list of websites that might offer assistance with baby needs, etc, telling them that they would receive full paychecks equal to their last paycheck for the next two weeks, and that he had gone to the trouble to start their unemployment claims should this last longer than two weeks.
And the internet tells me nothing about people like him: just the Waltons and the Bezos and others like them.....
The other job:
The owners and higher-ups have been hermitically-sealed for almost a month now. Last week, the just stopped coming in. They have been busily checking all the regulations to find the right loophole to have us listed as "essential" so they can keep the doors open to the public and us traveling through it. Good news! They found it! so all the low-wage people can keep coming and exposing themselves to keep those coffers overflowing.
Oh-- and when I told them I'd been exposed, I was told "well you've only got eight days of sick leave, so....."
Joke's on them. You see, when I started back there, they didn't re-do my hire package: they just flipped the switch back on for my access, files, etc. So I _started_ the job with ten days sick leave and ten days vacation.
And I work there _one day_ a week.
I think I'm good.
My daughter has stopped singing. I can hear the dog snoring (he likes to sleep in her room).
Another option can be NND Mind Control Based On Con, No Range (to activate), One Command ("Do Not Move A Voluntary Mussel"). This is a more immediate effect, but operates on the same rules as mental mind control.
It is this that may sell it to a GM. How do you build it so that it cannot be used against the big guys. I like powers that clear out the small fry.
You can see that Grailknight's power would hit anyone with 6 SPD and no power defence.
You might limit it such that it does not affect anyone with SPD greater than 4 (or perhaps 3) depending on the campaign. Or the GM lets you know that EVERY villain will have at least 5 power defence.
The big problem you're going to run into is that "Target cannot move for five minutes" basically means "Target loses" and HERO System will make you pay an appropriate amount for such an overwhelming effect.
The problem you'll run into with a Drain DEX is that even at 0 DEX you still get a 9- roll to see if you can act. Debilitating, but not totally paralyzing.
A CON Entangle would work, though has the problem that with enough DEF it can be inescapable for some targets unless you allow Haymakering the CON damage roll (which opens a different can of worms).
Mind Control and Transform would be the other obvious options, and both should work sorta-well.
Here's an option. You can play around with it in HD to better suit your needs.
Drain SPD 0 1/2d6, Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per Minute; +1), Damage Over Time, Target's defenses only apply once, Lock out (cannot be applied multiple times) (17-32 damage increments, damage occurs every Segment, +5) (35 Active Points)
Assuming a 4 SPD or less target, this will put them down 6.4 SPD over the course of 32 segments. The SPD change rules will allow them 2 or 3 actions on average before they go down. Once they do, it will take 3 1/2 minutes to get back to 1 SPD and recover the rest of their SPD at 1 per two minutes. Power Defense lessens the effect but merely reduces the total Drained by the total of the target's Power Defense.
This is and should be a Stop sign power so GM approval is required.
Well, if we can name it after particular ship names I got one.
Matilda Lawson is Repulse after the battlecruiser her older brother Nigel died on. She joined in an attempt to avenge him against the Axis powers.
Her power is an experimental battlesuit. Allowing her to fly and activate a force field to repel any artillery that come her way back towards its point of origin.
Note: hmm, is it modern or WW2 era, I do have a way to bring it into modern times if needed.
Edit: It being "experimental" eventually there was a malfunction that caused Matilda's death in battle late in 1944. In modern times, her grand-niece and namesake (family honoring the fallen in their family, obviously) an historian, reacquired the battle suit. And has been slowly having it retrofitted with more modern tech (and hopefully more reliable). The younger Matilda has always been obsessed with the world wars. And the rest of the Lawson family says she thinks like she is from the earlier part of the 20th century. Some of her older relatives wonder if she is in fact a reincarnation of the older Matilda, compelled to come back for some kind of unfinished business.
I'd agree that one thing Fantasy elements do is intensify the features of stories. Returning to LotR: Could the story be told without dwarves, elves, hobbits and orcs? (and as lesser players, ents and trolls.) I suppose so. The hordes of Suron and Saruman could just be human cultures they subverted; the Fellowship could be made of representatives of different countries. But I think Sauron's evil is shown more when his hordes aren't just people with unpleasant cultural features (the Southrons and Easterlings -- Middle Earth's Saracens and Tatars -- who could fill this role, are ciphers). Orcs are monsters, literally created to be brutal and pitiless. It isn't their choice. That Sauron, and then Saruman, would employ such creatures shows in turn that they aren't simply leaders with politics one might disagree with: It gets to the heart of what makes them evil, of what evil means in Tolkien's world.
Similarly, having the Fellowship consist of different races/species strengthens the point that resisting Sauron requires diverse peoples to overcome long estrangement. Men, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits have good reasons not to like each other very much. But Sauron isn't just a common military threat. Sauron is a moral, even theological, threat, that requires fundamental changes in how things have been. And so the friendship that develops between Gimli and Legolas means more, too, because the barriers they overcome are more than just those of people from different cultures.
I like the idea of the heroes being needed due to some super-normal feature of the virus. Perhaps it is proving impossible to manufacture a vaccine and one of the NPC heroes has to contract the virus and the heroes have to be miniaturised and venture into his body to help it combat the virus. When they have finished, the NPC is saved and his blood provides the basis for an effective vaccine....
"Mental Duplication" is the special effect. What does this allow him to do? Sounds like Telepathy with Invisible Power Effect, a bunch of Skill Levels, strong Mental Defense, strong +MOCV and +MDCV, and Photographic Memory, at least.
The thing that makes demons so damn scary is how tough they should be. High Body, Stun, rPD/rED + Damage Resistance except vs. holy items and high recovery. You can hit them all day long and it should mostly bounce off. On the other hand they hit the PC then nasty things should happen to them. This is where a demon should have the ability to use PRE to basically scare the crap out of PCs.
Even twins with identical DNA have different fingerprints.
Perhaps the villain used something during his frame up -- some chemical agent or even snatched a snack from a bystander and ate it-- to which the hero is allergic / susceptible to.
Perhaps he completely fails to recognize one of the hero's contacts, DNPCs, or friends. Sure; it's lousy in court, but it helps his friends to believe he's innocent.
At some point, the chameleon is seen in the presence of the hero-- perhaps not even close to each other-- two blocks apart, blissfully unaware of each other, but one bystander with a camera phone.....
The villain gets a power or signature move / catchphrase totally wrong or reacts extremely out of character-- maybe once; maybe twice. Enough that there is doubt in the minds of that one police captain that has known the hero for years.....
Like running around the corner and turning into a dumpster or a hobo.
For those using Tabletop Simulator with the Hero System Mod who have not yet looked at the Workshop for free game assets. Here is a list of thousands of free assets for different RPG Genre
Here is also a Link for everyone on TTS to all the free models and figures for each Genre. Please note there a thousands more than there to find, these are just a some good examples.
Modern Scenery & figures
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1940563574
Fantasy
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2006028577
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1571686567
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2034472108
Post Apocalytpic
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2037709585&searchtext= General
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2037476160&searchtext=
My group has use the TTS for our hero campaign twice now and its worked pretty well. There have been some bugs (which I've told Brennall about) that have been frustrating, but that's mostly because we want to use ALL THE TOOLS!!! As a way of just playing as a vtt it works well. But the combat tracker and loading character sheets has been so cool and helpful.
My players, who are all HERO newbies (though we've been playing for about 6 months) and mostly have shown little interest in picking up HERO are much more interested now that we are using TTS. I don't know why though.
Amorkca reacted to Duke Bushido in Coronavirus
