DasBroot

Did they? That's a shame. Back in high school a Magic game wasn't a Magic game until someone had flipped the table in a teenage rage about being unable to put anything on the table for the third. turn. in, a... ROWWW!!!! *flip*

My sarcasm detector is malfunctioning but ...

The numbers you list add up to nearly $16 mililon dollars a year in sales.  They really are better off pandering to the $150M to make, earn $500 M crowd who doesn't care there's no invisible jet or that the villain in BvS was the Riddler pretending to be Lex Luthor.

I think it really is just a difference in how the studios perceive things: Disney is about brand recognition and family entertainment so they keep things colorful, family friendly, and recognisable for merchandising purposes.  Warner Brothers doesn't have theme parks so brand recognition and merchandising is good enough.

edit: A google search shows that Warner Brothers do have a themepark in Australia (?) and one under construction in Abu Dhabi.  Huh. Live and learn.

The spears were made out to be a Big Deal in the dream.  In HERO terms I slap Penetrating on weapons like this in my games all the time - a magic spear thrown by an an athletic man won't destroy a tank but it's sticking out of it now and it shouldn't be, dammit.

Point taken. I think it's fair to say that introducing a ton of characters at once is more difficult than introducing them one at a time in their own movies. Certainly it can be done as GotG proved, or even X-Men. Given that the DCEU has so far failed to make me care about any of their characters even after (way too many) hours with them, trying to make us care about a bunch of new characters all at once was probably a bridge too far.

 

I think what made GoTG work was that literally nobody outside of a few comic book fans knew any of the characters.  Even I was only really familiar with was Drax - but not the Drax in the movie.  The rest I knew OF but didn't *know*.  In that regard there was no expectations on any of them save whatever could be conveyed in the trailer.  Green Black Widow? Fine.  Space Indiana Jones? Whatever.  Talking Racoon? Sure.  Tree alien? Why not.

DC films usually use bigger names (character and/or actor wise) with broader cultural penetration, on average, so for them to push out a 'no names' film was an unusual choice.  To have one of these 'no names' be played by WILL SMITH, though, instantly elevates audience expectations.  To have one of the antagonists be the Joker and played by Jared Leto pushes it up a level.  Hell, even my wife considered seeing it just because Viola Davis was in it.  Drawing in a large audience to a niche franchise was always going to be risky, whether they knew it or not.  

(As mentioned a risk that totally paid off, though - massive blockbuster dollars for everyone involved.  Just like BvS it doesn't really matter that a vocal minority of critics and fans 'hated it' - it made back its bank anyways.)

True.  Come to think of it, though, since most bears one would fight would 'typically' be in a Heroic level game, where it's recommended knockback does knockdown, shouldn't just being hit by a str 25 bear's normal swipe already knock someone prone?

Huh.  I mention Trip's name and they put him in the episode last night.

"Abductee torn open by gigantic pink blobs from the Unbreathable Beyond and it'll haunt your sleep" - Shipworm press

Gold Dust Woman - Fleetwood Mac

As I think on it, we had someone looking for a way for a bear's paw swipe to knock someone prone

Mechanically, the bear uses the Leg sweep maneuver.  It's up to the GM to describe it as a claw swipe instead of a drop and spinning leg swipe.  Though if he wants a kung fu bear that works too.

As for the topic at hand I think a held attack can do do most of what is desired already - as stated all those charge powers you can interrupt in an MMO would have Extra Time, which is interrupted by anything that requires an attack roll.  

If you want to 'interrupt' 'instants', though, a held action that forces a roll for them to continue does seem neat. 

If you have the reserve (say 120 points) to use two 60 AP attacks at once (vanilla them as 12d6 blasts - one vs ED, one vs PD) with a penalty for multi attacking wouldn't you be better off using a single 24d6 without penalty?

Enough reserve for two attacks at once only really makes sense if there's a DC limit in the game with a much higher or non-existent AP limit.  I am a fan of high reserve, low AP powers in a travel/utilty pool though - you can't run all your life supports at once, but you can run two or three, etc.

That entire scene could be handled mechanically as an AoE hand attack (blast vs PD is probably better) combined with ranged deflection (via linked, trigger, or a compound power - maybe multiple attack?).

Basically he runs around the room faster than anyone can see, knocking people out or adjusting things so they knock themselves out (either way it's his transferred velocity that's doing the damage - that's why the guys cheek compressed at a touch, and why people flipped over by hitting themselves in the face).  That's the Blast.  He then Deflected all ranged attacks aimed at his allies.  That's the tricky part to work in but it's possible.  

Coming at it from the other direction might work better.  He used his held action to use the ranged deflection, which has a triggered AoE attached to it.

You might even be able to get away with a Change Environment - penalty to ranged attacks over deflection.  That doesn't even require finding a way to defend and attack in the same segment: he goes first, turns on the 'Running interference' field and gives the guards a huge penalty to hit with ranged attacks, then makes his AoE attack. It's clunky because the guards shot first but that's just dramatic license in the end - mechanically it could be as simple as he really went first and KO'd all the guards with an AoE but the GM thought it was cooler to describe having the guards fire ineffectively due to his interference at the same time.

You know, the one thing I was pretty sure of was that he'd stick to the insular and withdrawn America he ran on (and I considered it a mistake, but it was better than him messing around with international diplomacy).

Argh.

Multi-power is powerful and versatile but without it many characters archetypes just don't work or become prohibitively expensive.

I slap 'attack' multi powers on pretty much every character I can for another reason - to feel like I'm making real progress when spending experience (Fire Blasting Man started with a blast and a simple AoE blast in there, but after several adventures and 18 experience (and buying fixed slots) he's added a smoke screen, a wall of fire, and can extend his amazing heat protection to others).

Without a multi-power he'd probably still be working on the smoke screen.

It's almost never limiting (especially for attacks) but it's not really meant to be. It's meant to provide variety.  There isn't a character out there that can't benefit from one, either - even a martial artist could fill it with various Hand Attacks with special modifiers on them (an armor piercing punch, a double knockback kick, etc).

The most legal but silly Mega-movement has to be swinging.

"I attach my hook to a satellite in low earth orbit and jump off the top of Mt Everest, I guess."

"HAAAAY YOOOO GUYYYYYSSS!"

Not that swimming is much better.

"Side effect: You created a tidal wave that destroyed Hong Kong. Again."

... ok, they're all pretty silly.

Until I saw him in last week's episode I completely forgot Mac existed.

 

Think that's a good sign?

Your subconscious mind is preventing attachment so you can't feel bad when he croaks or is written out, like every other minority male character who is a firm ally / joins the team eventually (Deathlok, Trip, Dr Andrew Garner).

Nah. Writing the show like a comic book and burning through 5-7 years of material in the first season made Heroes what it is today (and rebooting every single bit of character growth by the next episode didn't help - why they hell DIDN'T Matt stay with the FBI?).

The first season was good for the pacing, don't get me wrong, but there was no way they'd be able to keep that pace up.

I'd agree with that.  I've always liked "What if...." comics and unlike other usual comic book excuses they could have used to explore it (someone used a cosmic cube, shunted to an alternate universe, time travel) the 'simulation' angle makes the most sense for a show that even pretends to be grounded in reality. 

Well, the very first thing someone did was put variable advantage (+1) on a blast to replace an entire variable power pool (Blast only).  Expensive to use, END wise ... but when your end is running low from doing cool +1 advantage things (autofire, area of effect, etc), they can always fall back on a 0 END with a +1/2 advantage attack.

Someone else realised that 'Resistant' is an Advantage you can apply to PD/ED rather than paying more base points for Resistant Defenses/Armor  (normally works out to the same point cost to buy the advantage on PD as just buying regular rPD, but not here).

The buzz also included the adjustment advantages.

I'm expecting to slam my head into a desk when I get the sheets...

When I jokingly made a Spawn mock up NPC I went with the END Pool with 0 recovery - bought with a fudged severe side effect (when END pool reaches 0, character is removed from game).

It was a joke (and played as such, with the NPC catching busses, trains, and taking cabs instead of using movement powers to prolong his life) because basically the character paid a lot of points (it was a 500 point END pool, meant to last a campaign of 6 to 8 END per power use) to kill themselves.

Vision's Player: "I fly to near orbit, activate Density Increase at maximum, and fall on the villain."

GM "Ok, so that's a 0 OCV for an attack made at non-combat velocity speeds, with a penalty of --  "

VP: "I got a 3!"

GM: *sigh*

A half move after attacking is functionally pretty close to passing strike without extra velocity damage:  It's probably not the end of the world.

Allowing other power use after attacking, though, might have an exclamation mark beside it.

Does Volstag have a dad?

Back when I was collecting Thor Brian Blessed WAS the 'voice' of Volstag in my imagination.

I'd be fine with someone using tunnelling to make chambers with a Power or KS: Architecture roll to reflect making it structurally sound.

One Punch Man 

Loved it for what it was - a nice superhero / shonen parody with some occasionally neat super-heroic deconstructions.  I can now officially say I don't understand people who took it 'seriously'.

The Russians were warned (and no doubt warned their Syrian buddies) so if they were still on the base, they were there on purpose.

 

I don't know that Russia adding one more ship to the ones that are already deployed there really makes a whole lot of difference.  Still looks like theater to me.  The initial strike killed no one, wrecked a handful of SyAAF jets (but by no means all of them), and did no long term damage to the airfield itself.  We didn't even hit the sarin. 

6 military personal, 9 civilians (4  children) died in the strikes ... according to Syria.