薔薇語

I meant to links this when I got home the other night on that post but forgot. This is the clip I am referring to: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/09/23/sotu-panel-1-full.cnn La Rose.

Seems like a possibility. I think rather than an INT drain, you could just go with a temporary Physical Complication: momentary memory loss Another wild option is a compound power of Multiform (new regen) and a Heal (Ressurection of self only). To get back that 10 to 15 body shouldnt be too hard. La Rose.

Let's see if we can better understand the power goals and the various routes to achieve those ends. Goal: Character increases their BODY in a single action upto their starting BODY value. To achieve this basic goal there are 5 generally available power options: Healing, Aid, Regen, Absorb, BODY. We can rule out Absorb because it isn't really under direct individual control when it goes off and there is no reasonable RAW way to make it so. The remaining four all have their advantages and limitations. Healing can obviously achieve the goal but we need to take note that it requires a variety of advantages and limitations: High dice pool to recover the potential damage desired over and over again, decreased reuse times, Self Only, and a few more Special Effect specific lims. Aid to BODY, like Healing has the same benefits but needs a lot of work. Self Only, only to starting value, decreased fade rate, high dice pools, etc. Regen is a good default as it is automatically self only healing. It would need either non-persistent or Costs END to achieve the 'not always on' effect. You could even make it an Instant power identical to Healing. BODY pools with Cost END only to Activate and a cap set on it would achieve great parity with Healing. You could do combos of the above and in particular with Aid&Regen (my example above), and even Regen&BODY. The latter being a backup pool of body the character could draw from as an action to restore and a limited Regen on that spare body. In this way, we are essentially constructing an END Reserve for BODY. You seem set on only allowing 1 option which I think confuses many of us. If you have already decided how this power must be built, it generates confusion for the community to be asked how one should build it. Thus perhaps the root of yours and our frustrations. If you feel you know the way you want it built, please do so. Please do not criticize or otherwise scold the fine folks trying to offer up ideas here. La Rose.

I think Lucius's basic idea of Regen might be the best option. If this character has such great control over his body, we could probably reasonably say he is constantly doing truly minor repairs on it at most waking hours - even if it is just a matter of repairing things as he stretches and contracts to walk or grab something. To this extent perhaps a 4 pt 1/day Regen would be appropriate. You could tack on the limitations regarding type of damaged healed and that it is non-persistent in the instances that the character is incapacitated for a whole day. Next, to better achieve your "concentrated effort to heal" goal, I would build an AID to REGEN that has the fixed effect of bumping down the time-table to 1/turn. That would be a difference of 12 active points or a reliable 4d6 roll. All aid points above the 1/turn rate could go into boosting the value per turn to 2 or 3. I am not sure what the point values your game will be using or mechanical builds (MPs, etc) allowed, but it wouldn't be the hardest thing to get an 8d6 aid in an MP with various limitations (concentration, self-only, etc). This would allow the character to have a general ability to heal that he could also actively concentrate on to make semi-combat effective (1 or 2 BODY per turn of Regen). If you don't expect this to be Combat ready, then limiting it to only AIDing up to the 20 minute or 1 hour scale would be cheaper and produce high quality results. La Rose.

This is something I have seen in headlines but have yet to actually read. I can't claim particular familiarity for the claim of his virginity. As to referencing the veracity of the allegations made against him, I would hope we all recall a very basic tenant of judicial conduct: innocent until proven guilty - forgetting that has caused us some great headaches in the recent past. We are free to assess the claims the Judge has made so far as well, but I will note that regardless of his virginal status at that time, none of that proves he committed any of the acts alleged. La Rose.

I just caught a clip on CNN. Jake Tapper says that there were four people named by Prof. Ford as being present t the party. The Judge, Mr. Judge, Smyth (spelling?), and a female friend of Prof. Ford. All four people have denied any such actions having taken place where they were. Prof Fords own friend said that she can't recall ever being at a party with both Prof. Ford and the Judge. Immediately following this, one commentator said that this denial of events actually fits what the Prof. claimed. If that isn't a catch 22, I am not sure what is. Given the information we have now on the alleged event, what kind of progression could any investigation take? There are 4 relevant witness plus Prof Ford. All four say the claim is incorrect. 1 even says she didn't attend any joint party with the two. Unless Prof Ford can offer up more investigatable information, what can be done that wouldn't be a very long and expensive fishing expedition? La Rose.

For an investigation to take place, there needs to be some investigatable facts. That brings us back to the issue I raises above with Mega, we don't know anything that could be reasonably investigated yet: Time, Location, other's present, etc. Prof Fors has yet to say any of that info leaving us all to ungrounded assumptions. La Rose.

I am not sure if they were close friends or not at that time. I am also not sure merely being familiar with someone would prevent one from being confused. Decades have past and our brains are marvellous things that are quite capable of weaving together fragments into a narrative. Think about all the old stories you have heard someone tell time after time. Most likely no two times are exactly the same. The large bass your uncle caught becomes very large. Then he did it without bait. Then it was 18inches long and he struggled for a minute. Then for several minutes. Your Uncle probably never notices and never feels asthough he isn't telling the accurate truth. Memories are not unchanging photographs but stories weaved together through reality, or perception of it, and the constant retellings of it. This is why we had rash of Satanic Panic issues in the 80s as therapists tried to help folks recover 'suppressed' memories of horrific scenes; none of which were true. Again, I am not saying Prof. Ford is mistaken. I do not know. I wish she would provide more investigatable details into this matter so it wouldn't merely be 'he said, she said'. But given what we know of this case and countless others, we should take care to not hang and innocent person. La Rose.

I do not know if she is completely right or wrong. I worry there may be some confusion regarding the actions or people involved. Why do I say this? Because there are cases where this exact kind of thing has happened. I recall learning of a story of a man who was arrested for rape on the strength of the victims testimony IDing him as the attacker. It wasn't until many years later that the man was released from prison because the DNA evidence exonerated him and pointed to a different person. Even then the woman couldn't get over the belief that he was indeed the rapist. Did she do that maliciously? No, I sincerely doubt that. But these kinds of concerns are why we have to be careful with claims and look for as much supporting evidence as possible. Currently Prof Ford has not provided much in the way of investigatable facts so it is still 'he said, she said'. La Rose.

I don't think one has to claim partisan malice on the part of Prof Ford or the other. People do get confused and work themselves up into injustified confidence. It is just this exact worry that causes us to very weary of how suspect lineups are conducted. Subdtle nudges by the officer, lawyer, friend, or the felt pressures on the victim can cause them to grab onto a particular feature and become unjustly confident in a claim. This is why so much eye witness testimony is suspect, too. Why officers have to make sure to isolate witnesses before they talk with eachother and thus unduely influence each other. Let's look at the second claim of indecent exposure. This person stated clearly she wasn't sure who the person was because she was quite inebriated at the time. It is possible that she is ultimately right, but it is currently also possible that because of the unending news cycle she has worked herself into this belief mistakenly. This is something we all unfortunately do from time to time. Prof. Ford could be very much in a similar situation. If she provided investigatable facts, though, independent third parties could actually ascertain the truth of the matter more clearly. So far she hasn't and that is troubling. Ultimately it may end up being a case of 'he said, she said' with no clear resolution. Lacking strong evidence how should we proceed? Do we risk punishing an innocent man or risk promoting a guilty man. Our basic justice system is strongly predecated on the former, which is why the burdern of proof is largely in the lap of the prosecution to prove guilt and not the defense to prove innocence. La Rose.

I think that is largely right Mega. And I think rule number one should be that no Senator nor staffer can simply wait on these kind of allegations until the 11th Hour. That kind of action deserves some level of cesure. La Rose.

OldMan: 'If he were innocent he'd demand an FBI investigation and since he is not, it must be the case he is guilty.' I am not sure if the dichotomy you have established here is true. I would ask you to elaborate why you think it must logically follow. Can you help me with this? As to some issues I can see, all responses by him would be viewed as bad. It is a catch 22 for him. If he says nothing, folks make the claim you did. If he request some agency to followup, it would be viewed as baggering or some equivalent. Or perhaps the beginning of some conspiracy to use the FBI to shut down the case with merely a pro-forma investigation. aso, if this went the other way, I could easily see folks opposed to the Judge making a similar claim of 'If he wanted a fair investigation, he'd shut up. He isn't so therefore he must be guilty.' There is also the fact that the FBI doesn't really investigate these issues, they do filw and statement collection. All parties concerned have given their statements. I imagine the Judge is fully aware of this. I am also unclear if there is much room for local criminal investigation. Issues of the statutory limits; I have heard there may not be any for some potential charges, but I am unsure if those limits / lack-of-limits existed 36 years ago. The Senate nor the Whitehouse can order a local police station to investigate alleged activities. Moreover, there is no clear assertion of jurisdiction. Prof. Ford hasn't said where the activity took place, so we are not able to even ask the responsible authority to investigate. Amid all of these concerns purely on the side of the Judge requesting investigation, I am not sure one can make the strong claim you did above. Perhaps you could walk me through the thought process. Beyond that, of course, we get to the issues I raised above with Mega: what exactly would they investigate? We do not know the location that it took place, we do not know the time it took place, and we do not know who else is there. The only other people who are claimed to have been there have issued strict denials of the allegations.So, what exactly is there to investigate? Professor Ford could alleviate these concerns by answering those three points. Nothing has stopped her from being able to do that, and I am sure that every newspaper in this nation, the local authorities if legally permissible, and even the FBI would attempt to get to the bottom of this matter. I also think it's telling that the Washington Post, despite knowing about this long in advance, chose not to do an independent investigation. They too seem to understand that there was little investigativable facts. La Rose.

That, I am afraid, isn't a helpful response. I am curious where you got the information you stated. I want to make sure that we are on the same page as it relates to the facts of the case. Would you kindly please source the information I quoted above? La Rose.

"Kavanaugh has said he wasnt there, but he has also said he didn't know that his boss was committing sexual harassment and getting impeached a much shorter time ago. The senator from Hawaii is why are you committing perjury.That's on top of these other complaints that have come out. Grassley knew a week ago before Ford even said anything that Kavanaugh had waved his penis in another woman's face, and Judge's girlfriend coming out and saying that Judge had told her about these rapes they used to do and Kavanaugh was involved in it." Could you do me the favor of sourcing these claims? La Rose.

I don't think anyone is preventing the FBI or anyone else from investigating. The FBI has taken the info the Senator passed along at the 11th hour. At this point all they can do is take statements - statements that both parties have already made publically available. For Prof. Ford's part there don't seem to be any investigatable facts. The FBI nor anyone else knows where the alleged activity took place, what day, and who else was present and could otherwise confirm or deny the activity alleged. Not knowing even that basic information we can't even try and get an alibi from the Judge as he and we do not know when the activity took place in order to confirm where the Judge, 36 years ago, was indeed at. It is a serious claim for Prof Ford to make. It deserves to not be batted around between cries of absolute affirmation and gospel nor merely dismissed. If someone were to accuse you, OldMan, of sexual assault 30 years ago but without naming the actual time, place, or other potential witnesses, you and we would have every right and duty to request investigatable facts before we tried to hang you out to dry. The same goes for the Judge. And I worry about the ill fated path of claims asserted with 'unless you have something to hide.' That phrasing has had a poor track record for justice. La Rose.

I think people are confusing allegations with statements of facts at the moment. And I am not sure characterizing folks as wanting 'to get this serial rapist on the bench' are accurate or helpful. At the moment we have an alligation of attempted sexual assault which lacks any particular investigatable facts and another allegations of indecent exposure by a woman who by her own admission was too drunk to clearly recall who it was and like the former is very hazy on the investigatable facts. These are currently claims no stronger than many of the allegations against the Clinton Family that we normally snear disapprovingly at. So on that basis, I think it is best practices for us to not rush to destroy someone until more evidence can come forward to clear things. La Rose.

I can understand that. I wonder, though, how possible is this and would it not appear to be more a fishing expedition by the FBI based on little investigatable facts, especially now that everything has gone public? They could go back and interview everyone in her and his school for their years and the years prior and post about any possible impropriety, but given they don't know details on the event, would this not make such investigations neigh impossible? How many "I don't know anything about this alleged event" responses should they be collecting before calling it quits? If, on the other hand, Prof Ford offered up any investigatable claims, every news agency and private eye in the nation would be snooping around trying to uncover the story and the FBI would hardly be needed - take note that it took essentially no time for a classmate of Prof Ford's FB post affirming the incident to go viral - a claim that was recanted almost as fast. I wonder if it was this precise lack of investigatable claims that prevented WaPo from investigating the claims weeks ago when they got them? La Rose.

Mad-Social-Scientist? Isn't that mostly just extreme Communist and Marxists of the 20th century? We see parallels with folks like Dr. Doom whon just knows how to create a better functioning society. Popular media is replete with what many could consider the "lawful evil" style character who thinks themself the true hero. Skywalker, Apocalypse, Luther, etc. As to someone using actual social science data to undesirably change the world, I am hard pressed to think of examples that offer much to the PCs. You could reconstruct some classic Scarecrow / Joker plots wherein they would poison the citizenry for their own joys or research, but in this case the researcher know that by triggering some disgust sensors in one's brain, it could alter voting patters in a city and thus promote their preferred candidate. The plot could revolve around stopping that event and perhaps if there was a failure to stop it the fallout of the vote. Do the Heroes inform everyone? Does this affected the perceived legitimacy of the vote? Are people willing to say en masse that their vote wasn't free despite it feeling completely free at the time of the vote? Could there be a scandal in the leadup where a particularly anti-Meta politician running for office gets into it with one of the PC publicly and thus cast doubts on the claims coming from the PCs regarding the villain's actions? How do you prove to people that their 'free will' was supplanted in such a minor way as to merely change the vote outcome from 53/47 to 49/51? One could also make the Social Scientist less concerned with bettering the world and more concerned in the research that can be deployed to that end. Frustrated with archaic and stifling research grant processes, they take it upon themself to do the unthinkable research. Thus it is a more broadly focused Scarecrow style villain. La Rose.

In the Anita Hill case, I believe the FBI merely took testimony and did not investigate. The investigation were done by non-FBI authorities. The FBI doesn't have investigatable information at this time, I believe. They do not know when the alleged event was to have happened, where it was to have happened, and who else was present at the time. We only know generally that it was the summer of 82 and the three named people so far have given their statements. What exactly would we be expecting the FBI to go off of now? Beyond that, I do not believe the WhiteHouse has restrained the FBI in this regard - the allegation isn't a Federal crime and the lack of investigatable facts leaves them unable to do the equivalent of a deep background check. La Rose.

I think that the solution I provided above would allow for one to do exactly that: squeeze for strength damage. La Rose.

To me it sounds like an intense grapple with a unique special effect. To get to this point let's look at what seem to be the mechanic benefits she desires: Target Can-NOT move. She and the target occupy the same space. She can not depart the target unless she also releases the target. Those are all the mechanical effects of a grab. With only the first part it could be a barrier that engulfs or an Entangle. To build this you could take the Martial Grab maneuver from the Martial Arts list, apply AoE (1hex) and Costs Endurance (either to start or maintain as well). The tricky part, to me, would be in how we resolve the non-target-able-ness of the now grabbed character. Typically a grabbed character can still be targeted and damaged. One way to resolve that issue would be to create a very limited engulfing barrier power that largely reflects the character's natural defenses. Let's assume she has a PD/rPD of 20/10. "Barrier 9 PD/9 ED, 5 BODY (up to 1m long, 1m tall, and 1/2m thick), Opaque Hearing Group, Opaque Sight Group (55 Active Points); Limited Power: Can not offer personal protection - only protection for grabbed target (-1 1/2), Feedback (-1), No Range (-1/2), Restricted Shape (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4)" The PD/ED and BODY values reflect the hardness of the character's concrete shield. If the Barrier is destroyed, the character's grab immediately ends. Given its nature, it seems reasonable that it blocks one's sight and hearing. Given the character becomes quite large and easy to target it makes sense that the use of this power causes the character to become quite a bit easier to hit (Concentration at 1/2 DcV). The Feedback represents the fact that while a normal grabbed character can be targeted without harm to the grabber, this one is so well engulfed that it MUST harm the grabber in order to get to the grabbed target. You could also add on a minor Side Effect: Heavy (Density Increase up to 800/1600kg with no benefits), representing that if he target is on a weak surface, both characters might break through the ground. Those are my initial ideas. La Rose. Edit: Side note about this power build. It requires about a dozen points and 5 END to use. Given that it is essentially protecting a target who is more often than not going to be an enemy, it might not be a bad idea to ditch the "can not offer personal protection" bit. It will cost more points, true, but it would also let the power actually benefit the PC rather than what would typically be an enemy. It can be used on an ally to offer them protection in a pinch, as well.

Thanks for the imput everyone! I think I will go with stretching as the method. La Rose.

One of the players in an upcoming game wants a Spiderman like character. One thing Spidey can do is shoot a web at a target and then pull it towards him. I am up in the air on how to mimic this mechanically. There seem to be three basic approaches: TK with a suite of limitations to reflect the webbing and that it uni-directional. Stretching though a focus. One benefit is that if the target is immovable, the Spidey character could pull himself to that target via this. Flight UAA with a suite of lims. It gets the job done for cheap but I try to avoid Movement Powers with UAA. Things like Double+ KB blasts with indirect can do the job but would have the downside of destroying the target (potentially). Any thoughs? La Rose.

How I have used or seen used in other games: Roll Luck at the start of a in-game day or session (which ever is shorter). The body represents the number of rerolls available to that character. These are rolls for attack, skills, and even attacks directed at the PC. Always take the player favorable result. In addition, if there is ever a question of if something is possible wherein the GM is questioning it or a moment wherein things could go in one of two directions, the player may expend a luck point for their more favorable outcome. This is usually in addition to the reroll mechanic but could be a common pool to use for both. Luck has never been a common mechanic in the games I ran or played in, though. La Rose.

Enrage / Beserk is an Interesting option. The Player hasn't given me a particularly clear trigger for it but this might be the way to go to reflect the rarity/commonness and level of personal control. Thank you! La Rose