DasBroot

There was a discussion about this not too long ago but I can't find it with the search, either.

I think the core of if came down to 'why are you removing it'?

If it's because people going on different speeds is chaotic to track (and that's usually why someone wants to remove the speed attribute) then that's easy to fix - give everything in the game the same speed value for free and make it a dormant attribute - unable to be modified positively or negatively by anything in the game.

This lets flash, post 12 recoveries, aborting, and everything else that relies on the chart function without any sort of modification.  I'd recommend a set speed of 3 or 4 for a heroic game - that's 3 or 4 actions before the post 12 recovery.

The real question is - if he did run as an independent and (somehow) win the general election will both sides try and appease him so he doesn't use a presidential veto on everything in sight or would they largely ignore him and wait with baited breath to see if he does follow through on any of his campaign stances, such as issuing an illegal order to the military or deporting lawful citizens without  cause, so they can impeach him and get it over with?

Canadian official opposition tries to get Prime Minister to denounce Trump as a 'fascist'

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/ndp-s-mulcair-thinks-trudeau-should-denounce-trump-1.2841067

Yes, Mr Mulcaire.  Nothing bad could come of bad mouthing the next potential president of your largest trading partner - especially if your allegations end up being 'true'. That's exactly how international diplomacy works.

I know he's just saying it so Canadians remember that his party still exists and to look personally strong before the leadership convention that will in all likelihood see him replaced - but it looks childish and if he'd ended up PM I doubt he'd be saying it at all.

This is what Trudeau has said and frankly it's all ANY foreign power has a right to say:

"I have great faith in the American people and look forward to working with whoever gets elected in November," said Trudeau, who did not mention the Republican candidate by name.

"As we approach November and as we move beyond into the next administration there will be some lessons learned that I hope get learned," he continued. "But like I said, I have tremendous confidence in what Abraham Lincoln referred to as the 'better angels of our nature."

Does Scarlett Johansson have a say in the matter? What rights an individual has to their image -- especially when their image is an essential part of how they earn their living -- is one of the most vital questions advances in technology for both robotics and VR/CGI are forcing Intellectual Property law to address. What if this were a "sexbot"? What if a virtual Scarlett were being used for CGI pornography? What is someone were to make a mopvie that Scarlett did not want to participate in, but the producers inserted a CGI version of her anyway?

 

And what does the potential of CGI duplicates of current, former, or deceased stars mean for younger people trying to build their own acting careers? Do you think Disney would be bothering with their massive casting call for a young Han Solo if they could create a young version of Harrison Ford to do the job?

Google "Ellen Page sues" and see what she has to say about this practice (not once but twice).

Warlord in Crimea.  

Who else would dare thumb his nose at both of the world's strongest military superpowers at once (but mostly Russia)?

How many skill levels did you take with "thrown biped of opportunity"? Part of the problem with "unbalanced" STR is that we tend to be far too generous with objects of opportunity turning STR into AOE, Range with no targeting drawbacks, etc. That's not consistent with the source material - when the Hulk throws a bus at Spidey, he nimbly leaps through its windows, avoiding the attack - doesn't seem like he was targeted as a DCV 3.

Actually, I do have one character that does have +8 penalty skill levels with the thrown maneuver, but it's an edge case so overall I get what you're saying about the throwing portion of my str advantage vs blast list.

As an aside I give larger than man sized (ie can do AoE) objects of opportunity the 'Non-Selective' disadvantage which attacks full DCV.  Throw a bus into melee where Spider-Man is in hand to hand with one of your allies and you'll probably miss Spidey and clobber your pal.

Also, hand killing attacks of that magnitude tend to occur in superheroic games - where resistant defense is common.  If the target of the 4d6+1 killing attack has even 15 rPD the brick was better off using his 12d6 punch.  Both will do 0 body but the 12d6 regular attack avoids the Stun Roulette of a killing attack.

By the rules it might look like an unfair advantage but in 3 years of play in my superhero games in practice nobody has bothered using them in my games since the first '0 body, X1 stun' roll. Your mileage may vary.

The most unfair thing about it, in play, is (as I think someone mentioned) there's no way to do that with a non-hand to hand attack (you can't turn your 12d6 Blast into a 4d6+1 RKA for 5 points. You know, without putting it in a multipool).  But that's mostly because strength has always been a problem attribute when it comes to that.

"I can blast things far away, if I take enough levels of penalty skill levels to actually make my range matter, for 12d6"

"I do the same damage with a punch. I'll take the points you spent on PSL and put them into Leaping.  Also I can grapple the guy and have a 60 strength so he's probably out of the fight even if HE has a 60 str (stupid initiate grapple vs half str rules *always* favors the attacker).  And I can lift 100 tons. And throw an enemy 24 meters (at least) into another enemy for 12d6 to both of them, in all likelihood (even a Bod 10, PD 2 baseline villain is good for that)."

Nope.  I think its worth using a "computer link" perk to represent someone who always has a phone or can, say, through their power armor, act like a phone, but its pretty much like a wristwatch now.  Do I need to buy absolute time sense with an OIF and continuing charge to represent that?

Some GMs would make you - especially if someone else paid points for absolute time sense because it's one of their 'mutant' powers.

Me, I just have the 'paid for' powers work better.  Cell phone might be free but the guy who builds radio senses into his armor for actual points will never be told 'you have 0 bars and the call fails'.

Silver Banshee's costume looked reasonable to me.  Honestly, I like DC's current shows not being afraid to dip deeper into comic book territory than other shows have.

In the designing montage that we didn't see I wouldn't be surprised if Siobahn (under the banshee's influence and using the flashes we were shown) wasn't giving suggestions for the face paint. The fact I assumed that the instant she appeared indicates to me that it was a successful homage.

Now... how did the super-earplugs stop the plexiglass breaking, Supergirl throwing kinetic aspects of the wail?

I consider last night's episode to be the weakest I can recall seeing in the series.  

I still enjoyed it quite a bit (which says something) - the banter was great, the lines overall were great, there was nothing wrong with the effects or the acting - I just found the story to be a little weak.  The reasons for going, the lack of major changes despite *far* greater interference in events than previous incursions...

I would build Fire Girl with a second multipool with the armor and flight in it.  (Truthfully, though, I'd personally take the armor out of it).

In my games it's not uncommon at all for people to have two, or even three, multipools - usually something like a 60 point for attacks / special situation attacks (such as a fire blast, a drain that works on fire (to siphon heat), a fireball AoE, a Change Environment to raise heat levels, etc) and then a smaller 40 point for movement and such (though not always - 60 point second pools are not unheard of).

As an example there's one character in my game that has basically the adaptive shields of the Borg from Star Trek.  His attack pool is 60 points.  His secondary pool is also 60 points - and holds all three damage reductions at 75%.  After he is attacked (or - if he has foreknowledge of what he'll be facing - before the fight) he switches to whichever fits the circumstances to bolster his Resistant Protection.

He's really frigging tough but enemies learn to mix attack types when they engage him (if they can).

He still had plenty of points to build the rest of the character because both pools use OIF (his blaster cannon arm for the first pool, his shield generator backpack for the other).

So they kept the curse origin for Silver Banshee after all.  Nice.

Fun episode sums it up.  I can't see it doing anything to spike viewership for either show (there's probably a lot of overlap anyways) but Barry acted exactly like he does in his own show and for any comic crossover in any medium that's always a measure of success for me.

The most recent episode (the crossover is tomorrow as I write this) did address this point. Young Kara, only recently arrived on earth hears trouble and DOES rush to help. She saves two lives--and is soundly lectured about the dangers of doing so again. So while, yes, she is physically superior to anyone (except Clark) in her life, every authority figure she knows spends the next ten years telling her to keep her head down and avoid making a spectacle of herself. And she's a pre-teen (or teenager) for most of that time. And she does what she's told (by presumably wiser people than she).

Exactly. A super powered little girl / pre-teen is still a little girl / pre-teen.  Frankly, the show's world is lucky she went the 'dutiful daughter' route (probably due to her upbringing on Krypton, which has always portrayed itself as a bastion of science, rational thought, and order) rather than 'you can't tell me what to do!' rebel.

If a change environment power is bought with the Long Lasting adder what happens if the multipool slot is switched? Does it end because it's still technically a continuous power (even though the adder doesn't kick in until the user 'stops using the power') or does it act like Uncontrolled or Continuous Charge and endure?

You don't have to buy 0 END -- that's already covered by Charges.

No, but you do if you want to apply time limit to "Light" and "Silence".  Though like I said - it doesn't do what the OP thinks it does and your continuous charges (recoverable) does.

If you want to avoid that, make the Continuous Charges Recoverable. Buy half a dozen Charges (or some such) -- that ought to cover one fight pretty well, and afterwards you have them all back again.

Definitely the simplest solution. I love recoverable  charges for what D&D 4E would call 'encounter powers' (and regular charges for 'daily powers').

Okay, those explanations make sense.  I think I need a couple more examples though, covering points that weren't earlier...and why I didn't lead with them I'll never know...

 

Light: Images to Sight, Time Limit 1 Hour(+?)

 

Silence: Darkness to Hearing, Time Limit 5 Minutes(+?)  

 

I know I can do both of those with Continuous Charges.  But then I have a limited number of castings - the problem I want to avoid.

First thing to do, since those are Continuous powers, is buy them to 0 END (+1/2),  Then, according to the chart, the Light is a +1 1/4 advantage and the Silence is a +3/4 advantage.

That would let them start and stop the power for the duration of those minutes without having to do any preparations (extra time, gestures, incantations). It doesn't actually limit the effect's duration time (which is what I think you're looking for) - that's not what time limit as an advantage does for continuous powers. I think you really are looking for Continuous Charges (Recoverable).

(Great catch by L. Marcus)

I think part of my understanding problem is how durations interact with multiple uses.  If lasting one hour is a limitation, and I can cast more than 12/24 in a day, shouldn't that be an advantage?

Not really - in the case of entangle or barrier, for example, you can throw up a thousand in a day, if you want, and they'll each last an hour.  Or, if you don't take the disadvantage, you can throw up a thousand and clutter up the game world forever (I had a player in my game use an unanchored barrier with Opaque to sight and variable size build himself a castle using it).

In the case of something like Resistant Protection - you turn it on once at the start of the campaign and, unless you get killed or it gets Dispelled, you're done.  No repeating every hour of your career to keep your protection up.

Like I said - in practically every situation I consider it what I classify a 'non-disadvantage' - that's a disadvantage that I, as a GM, would have to go out of my way to bring into play periodically.

In the case of an attack it's a worthless advantage unless it has preparations - you pay a LOT for the privilege of using the power exactly as you would have used it anyways at base cost.

For the first one the time limit (as an advantage) just lets you repeat the attack every phase for an hour, if you'd like.  It's not Continuous (requires only one attack roll), nor is it Damage over Time.  It costs END every time you use it during that hour.

Really, it's just reusing the attack.  In the absence of other things that restrict how Burn is used (extra time, as my blast example above) it's a waste of points - mechanically no different than simply using the power every Phase. (Unless *I've* misread it, which is certainly possible.  As an advantage, like I said, it's 'weird'.)

For the second it's literally just this:

Life Support  (Expanded Breathing - Water), Usable Simultaneously (up to 8 people at once; +1) (10 Active Points); Time Limit (1 Hour; -3/4), RC: 6

It's a disadvantage on the second power because normally Life Support is of undetermined duration - which can actually be a problem with Usable By Others if you don't take the 'grantor can take power back at any time' modifier (+1/4) - you'd cast the spell on up to 8 people and then, unless they get stunned or willing give the power up, be unable to use it ever again in the campaign. For that reason Time Limit, which is a limitation, on a UOO power can actually cheaply replicate as a disadvantage what is normally an ADVANTAGE on UOO in this situation (-3/4 instead of a +1/4 advantage).  That's not really cool in my books and if they wanted it as a disadvantage I'd make a player pay for the 'revoke' advantage as well (thus they could remove the spell when they wished or it runs out after an hour - whichever comes first).

Though again - not much of one, in my opinion, especially on entangles and barriers.  They probably aren't going to last more than a minute in a fight anyways but slapping a -2 on it to make sure they *can't* saves a *lot* of points.

One Minute Barrier:  Barrier 6 PD/6 ED, 1 BODY (up to 3m long, 3m tall, and 1/2m thick) (26 Active Points); Time Limit (1 Minute; -2). RC 9

Resistant Protection (10 PD/10 ED), Usable By Other (+1/4) (37 Active Points); Time Limit (1 Minute; -2), RC: 12

How it works is like this: If you have a power that is normally of unlimited duration, even if it's an instant (such as entangle, barrier), or any persistent power or otherwise duration permanent power assigning a time limit is a disadvantage.  In the case of a time limit Resistant Protection of 1 hour, for example, the character would have to turn the power back on after an hour. Usually this isn't a problem (which is why I'm not a huge fan of it as a disadvantage as a GM) but if you were underwater and your air tank only had 1 hour of air it could be (this could be built as either life support with a time limit or life support with a continuous charge. The line blurs often between the two,)

Time limit as an advantage is.... weird.  It really only works on modified powers, as the example in Champions  Complete outlines.  Basically if you take something that makes a power hard to use (like extra time) and then  take time limit as an advantage it lets you skip that extra time restriction when reusing the power for the duration of the advantage.  So if you had an anime style massive chi-blast that took a whole turn of screaming to charge but you only had to repeat the last syllable of the scream  to repeat the blast after that for a turn you could build it with extra time (-1 1/4) and time limit (+1/2).

Example:

Yell Forrrrr Powerrrrrr - Haaaaa!:  Blast 40d6, Time Limit (1 Turn; +1/2) (300 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Turn (Post-Segment 12), -1 1/4), Incantations (Requires Incantations throughout; -1/2), RC: 109 .

Bishouman with a speed 6 starts screaming on Segment 12 as the fight starts.  The entire first full turn of the fight he screams "Yellllll ... forrrrrr ..... powwwerrrrrrr!" over the course of 12 segments. After the auto recovery of segment 12 (basically between segment 12 and segment 1) of the first full turn the blast goes off, obliterating a minion.  For the next turn (second full turn of the combat) all he has to do is yell "Haaa!" "Haaa!" "Haaaaa!" on his phases (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12) to repeat the blast.

If theres anything left besides a smoking crater by the third full turn he has to start again with a full turn "Yell for power".

My friend hates that a bunch of published characters have vilnerability to physical attacks.

"Bullets! My only weakness! How did you know?"

It's a sad state of affairs that one of the biggest plot twists in my current Champion's campaign is that the US government and its superhuman affairs department aren't evil.  It broke my player's brains - they spent entire sessions trying to reverse engineer the ulterior motives behind super-powered FBI agents helping them with intel and field assistance in apprehending a very powerful super-villain. 

I just have to keep checking my adult expectations at the door. I realize that it is very comic-booky to have the official U.S. military's response to the public outing of Jonn J'onzz be radicalized and fascistic in sentiment, but it bugs me just the same. It also bugs me that Superman knows about Cadmus but has never tried to hunt it down and destroy it. I am also tired of smart, reasonable characters forced to behave in the most petty, despicable ways just so they can learn a valuable life lesson and change their spots somewhere down the road. It's as if tv shows like this must balance out decent writing with dumbed-down material only suitable for tweens.

 

Lucy Lane was really getting on my nerves, but then they saved her from becoming a completely worthless character by the end of the episode. My only remaining issue with her is that she is played by the distractingly unattractive (to me) JDT.

 

I am also rather curious about:

 

So presumably Siobahn is a metahuman like Livewire, right? I mean, the show hasn't come out and given a label to these characters whose powers come from "physics gone wrong" (or "science run amok" as in the case of Bizarro), but presumably they are in the same class of beings as the "metahumans" on The Flash.

 

The US government is always like this in comics.  Nothing surprising.  Though in this case, to be fair, they really did give top secret level clearance and practically unlimited authority to an illegal alien (literally).

If I were a doctor trained in India and couldn't get my licence in the US because I wasn't here legally it really wouldn't matter if I was the greatest doctor in the world and had saved hundreds of lives on the operating table when the authorities finally caught up to me.

Superman not working for the government because of Cadmus but not doing anything to shut it down annoyed me, as well.  

I want to dislike Lucy but frankly she hasn't really been wrong - "James" is a jerk when it comes to their relationship.

 

I've actually noticed Vulnerabilities and Susceptibilities being used less often in my games. Seems like I see them more in NPCs/monsters these days; not a single PC in my current game took one. Not sure why, and no idea if it's just us?

 

Not just you - the closest thing to 'vulnerability' any of my players currently posses are whatever affects their desolidification (and doesn't have any affect on them otherwise).  For example we have one 'ghost' PC whose Desolidification and Regeneration (with the Resurrection advantage) are countered by silver but silver does no extra damage or anything of the sort.  Technically, as far as I can tell, being shot by a regular silver bullet would just bounce off her 20 rPD even as a ghost (she doesn't have anything on her sheet mechanics wise stating her Resistant protection can't be used while Desolidified).

It's mostly used by me for designing enemies. 

A Cosmic VPP comes to mind.

Exactly right.  "Any item ever held' could be an incredible array of powers, potentially - well outside the scope of what the Summon power should do.

It's a cosmic VPP with a summon special effect and a focus of some flavor on any slot you build for it.

I have done this exact build with a character who had a magic cloak of many pockets that could do the same thing.

If VPP are too messy you could build a multipool instead and buy slots as you add 'items' to your list - but in the very long run it will be cheaper to have bough the VPP in the first place (especially if you don't build it as a true cosmic vpp - leave requiring a roll, etc).

The book says you can summon inanimate things but in my opinion the rule support is terrible for it.  Even bought slavishly devoted a gun you summon will stop working in Ego number of phases (just because), etc.