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DasBroot

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Posts posted by DasBroot

  1. 14 hours ago, mrinku said:

    Moving off a Held Action is fine. DEX rolls will still be required. It's the same deal as using an attack in that situation. In fact, Cheshire doesn't really need to declare what he's waiting for, though the GM might give him a small bonus for doing so (maybe a DEX roll bonus). Or the GM may allow him to use the Cover rule instead.

     

     

    Makes sense.  Without a declaration of intent, though, what's the difference between using a held action to move or aborting to a held action to dive for cover? It seems like you'd be crazy to DFC in that situation (which I suppose I might be ok with, as it's meant to be a desperate action to protect yourself or another - the later of which a held move can't do.)

  2.  

    Good points all around.  I like DSA's specfic beating the general a lot so I'll probably go with it.  Waiting to generally 'jump in' can go after whatever made you decide to jump in is resolved - waiting for a specific situation resolves before that situation.

     

    I have another, though - 

     

    4 - Held action to move

     

    By the rules you cannot move as an abort (for good reason) - that's what moves like dive for cover are for.

     

    Could you move as a hold, though?

     

    ie:  Cheshire knows that Ogre is going to move next to him and punch him out. Cheshire has a higher dex and declares he's holding his action to teleport 10 meters when Ogre moves next to him.

     

    It's not quite the same as aborting to dive for cover with teleport because Cheshire has declared this is what he's waiting for as opposed to holding in order to react later.

     

    It's very close to it, however.

     

    I think I might let it slide with a dex roll off (since moving isn't a defensive action, even used defensively).  My gut leans towards saying 'You just described dive for cover', though (and that's really what this is - except better because succeeding doesn't leave you prone). 

     

    "Why yes my group is made up of old school Magic the Gathering players, how did you know?"

  3. Just want to make sure I'm using/ruling on held actions correctly - due to the nature of my current game (damage vs defense levels) players are really starting to use them:

     

    1 - Held Action used defensively: Always goes first.  A character with dex 15 Holds and is later attacked by a character with Dex 13 so he decides to Martial Dodge.  Easy.

     

    2 - Held Action used offensively as a 'trigger':  A wrestler brick Holds his action for when Speedy Jim, who keeps using Passing Strike on him, gets within reach.  When Speedy Jim gets within reach but before Jim attacks the brick wants to use Sacrifice Throw.  Requires a dex roll? (Which the brick will probably lose anyways)

     

    3 - Held action used defensively on behalf of another:  A support character Holds his action and wants to use Aid: PD on a team-mate that is successfully hit before damage is rolled (he didn't just use it beforehand because he wants to see which of his team-mates is actually being attacked this phase but doesn't want to waste it on a 'miss' so wants to go between hit and damage).  Dex roll again? Or no dex roll because it's defensive in nature? Or even possible?

     

    I think that's it.

  4. 9 minutes ago, Cancer said:

    Oh, sending Mugabe off to the next plane of existence is something I would never turn down.  I was merely recommending caution against excessive optimism.

     

    Definitely.  My statement goes both ways - they stay in power because people fear the alternative, but at the same time history has shown them that they often have reason to.

     

    So, it's a good thing ... but as you say watch out for what fills the vacuum.

  5. Funnily enough Steppenwolf was used in an episode of Justice League Action - in the first episode I'd ever let my 4 year old son watch.

     

    He teleported Superman to a red sun planet and started beating him up.  My son was watching between fingers: He asked 'is he going to die' at which point I said I was turning the channel - he's still too young and it was ok to be scared - to which he protested that he wasn't scared and took his hands down (for all of 10 seconds).  Afterwards he walked around the house doing a 'superhero' voice for an hour (and it was cute/hilarious listening to him speaking as deep and gruffly as he could (Batman was also in the episode)).

     

    That's... basically my only knowledge of the character. But due to context I probably won't forget him now.

     

     

  6.  

    Steve's answer:

     

    http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/96241-moving-while-prone/

     

     

    In short he believes that knockdown or knockback cancels a current movement action - if the character wants to keep moving he can either take another move (if he was moving on a half phase action and has another half phase action left) or on his next phase (if he was disrupted during a full move action).

     

    It makes sense to me.  I've never tripped or been knocked over without taking a second to stand up and start from scratch.

     

    It makes stopping fleeing villains easier, too - peg them with an AoE as they book it at NCM and arrest them as they skid to a stop.  That's pretty much a classic way of dealing with the situation in comics.

  7. I'm not so sure on this.  I think I remember reading a ruling here that you actually can't 'look around corners' with stretching - under the rule that if there's a more expensive way to do something in hero you should take it (a highly limited clairvoyance, in this case).  

     

    I think it's clear the power isn't *intended* to allow you to change your perception point:

     

    Quote

    Allows a character to stretch his body, increase his Reach to make HTH attacks at a distance, and reach for things that are a long distance away from him. Examples include a fantastic superhero with a malleable body, a weapon with long Reach, or a robot with telescoping arms.

     

    Everything example there after 'stretch his body' talks about hand to hand and physical things - it doesn't even increase run speed by Stretching your legs, for example : you can reach out/up and grab something and then pull yourself to it, but the Stilt-Man effect isn't *stretching*, per se - it's Running with a Stretching special effect (and, if you can step over trucks or small buildings while moving forward, an argument could be made for Leaping with Accurate, Stretching SFX instead). 

     

    Changing your perception point is a big thing in the rules (with multiple adders or powers that do it) so I think they'd mention it if they intended a character to be able to go 'up, periscope' and look over a building.

  8. On 13/11/2017 at 5:32 PM, Starlord said:

    None of the women from that article look like they're on steroids to me.  They all look like crossfit trainers to me.  The girls at my gym that do crossfit certainly aren't juicing, they're just in really good shape.  Good muscle tone, less than 5% body fat, just like Serena Williams and some other tennis players I've seen as well.

     

    Little quibble here but it's unlikely any woman in your gym is at 5% or less (at least not if Serena Williams is the benchmark for 5%).  Or men - it is *incredibly* difficult to get to and maintain healthily (since it's close to the magic 3% number).

     

    The women in those new costume photos, for example, are closer to 12%.  Which is as a percent or two lower than I was ever able to get 'naturally' (I was power-lifting, not bodybuilding, so it wasn't my main goal - dropping fat is just the easiest way to inflate your lift to body weight ego/boasting metric)

     

    On the costumes themselves - yeah, Mad Max / Xena all the way. It doesn't look blockbuster - it looks 90s TV,

  9. 20 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

     

    The people who are willing to notice it have already done so. Polls suggest that may be the majority of Americans. The remainder don't want to notice, or don't care.

     

    I'm reminded of the quotation from Stuart Chase: "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

     

    That quote basically sums up everything that's wrong in the world.  It's always been that way, of course, but social media, etc has done a *lot* to 'justify' peoples opinions by allowing them to find others who think just like they do.

  10. She absolutely was.  Literally just a vessel for character interaction with hazy and vague powers (she can animate statues, fine - but she does it without even being able to see them?  Does she have a Detect with penetrative on it or something?)

     

    Also super-enhanced-faster-than-ever Barry still can't dodge a punch from something ridiculously slow (a statue, a dinosaur skeleton).  Maybe it's like a housefly - you have a better chance of swatting one the slower you go because they perceive things hundreds of times faster than we do: A swat with your hand comes in slow motion, but a slow sneaking up on them is indistinguishable from a wall.  

     

    Hopefully she gets a second chance at being something when the Thinker breaks them all out to form his city conquering super gang.

     

    And if Joe and Barry instantly dismiss this "DeVoe" because he's in a wheelchair I won't be pleased.  Thrawne in season one, anyone?

     

    I'm liking Ralph but not as much as I might normally... I'm just getting weird Ace Ventura vibes from his performance, and I find it distracting.

     

  11. I've finished the season and liked it just as much as the first.  

     

    As for Episode 7 - it does kind of put the brakes on the pacing but it was full of good things so I'm ok with that.  What I would have liked to have seen was it spread as a background story over several of the episodes - if they'd had Eleven interact with them sooner they could have had the train scene and decision to go help her friends happen right at the start of a 'new' episode seven - and then cut back to the facility arc without losing momentum.

     

    The perils of a short season, sometimes, is that you really do have too much story to squeeze in.  

  12. HI Steve,

     

    What effects does being prone have on a characters ability to move (or continue moving if they were already doing so)?

     

    For example, Sprint-Man has 60 m of Running and is using it with Passing Strike to attack Frost Gunner (40 m away).

     

    At 20 m he is hit by one of Frost Gunners minions using a held action (Ice Floor Ray: Telekinesis - weapon element - Trip)  and is knocked prone.  Can he crawl (with all the prone penalties) the rest of the distance and finish his attack?

     

    Example 2 - Wise to the ways of Frost Gunner could he have just crawled (moved while prone) the 50 m and not risk being tripped in the first place (ignoring the laughter of Frost Gunner, his henchmen, and even Sprint-Man's own team-mates)

     

    Thank you

  13. UNless my account was stolen by hackers (I always assume so in any long hiatus) my Forsaken Warlock (favorite character in any MMO, ever  is still standing in what was a 'new' underwater zone. Whatever expansion that was. I played up to it while waiting for it to drop and just... didn't finish the expansion. 

     

    I still miss that guy.  Other DoT (or Blaster)-Pet master classes since just haven't measured up.

  14. 8 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

    Almost all of the actions, except perhaps Trip or grab, do not explicitly prevent the opponent continuing their progress to the target.  Trip would be a difficult manouevre on a flyer.

     

     

     

    I think even 1 m of  knockback done by whatever attack you held would - it knocks them prone.  Standing is at least a zero phase action (position shift or Acrobatics) or a move action.

     

    In that regard, as with most combat situations, the advantage goes to Ranged - no muss, no fuss, no rules interpretation:  Hold your action and Blast anyone who moves towards your friends (with or without the Suppression Fire rule).

     

    (Then again the rules don't define a movement penalty for being prone that I've ever found - could someone Running 60 m get knocked down at 45 m and then crawl the last 15?  Could he just crawl 60 in the first place?)

     

     

  15. The best episodes this season have been stand alone.  It's like the anti-DS9 in that regard - or making the same mistakes that Enterprise season one made.

     

    Either way, I do like it (with a few reservations).  I don't even mind the jump drive as long as I place the series in Elseworld land  - I've always considered them very cool (especially in the BSG reboot, which is basically how this jump drive comes across as well).

  16. I have to agree with that.  Almost any piece of sporting equipment  can be dangerous when used out of context: bowling balls, darts, ice skates, baseball bats - three of those things could kill in a single well placed hit and the other would still suck to be attacked with.

     

    Shooting a gun well takes no less skill than any other sport or recreational activity and deserves such recognition.  Yes, it's also much more commonly used as a weapon than the above examples and that is why it is, and must be, more tightly regulated - but  this always has and always will boil down to one thing:

     

    Intent.

     

    As gun laws tighten I believe we will see more and more alternative weapons used - like the upswing in vehicular use.

     

    Not everyone can get a gun without a background check (if the system worked properly - we all know it's not perfect) but everyone can get a car.  We're lucky one hasn't been used in the perfect context yet - I'm not looking forward to a day when someone plows a rig into an air show crowd or something.

  17. I really like the superhero theme of 'Is there a man under the mask - and if so, which is the man, which is the mask?' - it's one I commonly use in my characters - and I'm glad to see you take it on, whether you expected to or not.

     

    (A disproportionate number of aforementioned characters are basically super powered bums due to how they've answered the question. It's a trap, Eel!)

     

    If I had one reservation about its implementation here it's that I would have preferred that the 'mean girl of justice' mainly started the conversation 'She's falling for you and she's worried because - unless you sell out like that Hollywood tool - being the Eel isn't a career, idiot.' and got him really thinking about it on his own from there with most of her points afterwards being self-awareness.  

     

    I'm sure that he will be thinking about it  ... but I feel that he dug in his heels against the very notion and was preached to a touch too heavily in this update.  He's defiant, often to the point of stubbornness  - it's one of his dominant traits in my opinion  - but he hasn't often been truly boneheaded.  

     

     

  18. Fair points -  though SWTOR has added a fair number of 'alternate mode' missions... where you stomp around the map as a walker or try and avoid detection as a hacked mouse droid (both available as dailies or repeatable missions on Iokath - including walker on walker pvp combat) so maybe they're aware of it?  People whine every time they add something new like that instead of 'fix pvp', though.

     

    As for other events not mentioned - there are the survey missions and probe missions in SWTOR as well, where you explore and lock on to targets with your binoculars or send a probe out to dig for treasure.   There's also the Starfox style space missions, which I enjoy as a break (though they haven't added any new ones since launch - still, hard to go wrong with strafing a Star Destroyer and shooting down a hundred fighters in my favorite - Makem Te assault.  I can play that one for an hour straight (and have)).  

     

    Also Galactic Starfighter - which i really enjoy.  It's pure pvp, though, like World of Tanks, and unlike WoT (where it's the entire point of the game) only a very, very tiny percentage of players play it so it takes a LONG time for a match to pop.  Also while it has the friendliest community in SWTOR there are still more than enough jerks flaming new pilots  Combine that with the fact that the learning curve is very steep and the difference between a tricked out fighter and a starting fighter (even if they're the same ship class) is brutal (it's daunting when every shot you make seems to do nothing, even if by a miracle you hit something, while that guy over there has gone on a 20 fighter kill streak of one shotting everything that has the misfortune of being in his sights) and many people don't give it more than a match or two.

     

    No fishing, though.

     

    Of the above - the community hates survey, probe, starfighter, and galactic starfighter so they get very little development time (like I said... a toxic community which shoots down or ignores anything 'new' the developers try):  WoW gets enhancements to its side games because  its sheer population dictates that enough people enjoy it to be worth it.

     

    As for the gear grind... oh, it's real.  The orange shells (adaptable gear) and vendor mods are a blessing for leveling but for the end game content you want the set bonus gear and levels of mods that are beyond what the vendors sell - you can't even *queue* for the more recent operations without a gear score you can only acquire through grinding for components through older raids or pvp (ground or space). 

     

    (To the loud screams of raiders and pvpers they're changing it shortly so that you can slowly acquire components with the command crates you get for leveling while at cap - they're funny like that: quick to shout down and kick 'noobs' out of their matches or ops groups but then cry at the top of their lungs that nobody will queue anymore if they can get their end game gear without doing so).

     

     

  19. 13 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

    It is sad to see what is happening to Star Wars, its a really neat idea with a super popular franchise and they can't seem to make it work.

     

    The game is super fun... for a while.  But once you run the story there's just nothing there.  SWTOR has some of the best ideas and mechanics for role playing I've ever seen in any game and the stories with your companions are great.  It really felt deep and interesting.  But because of the voice acting and animation, its also super expensive.  And it being so tightly connected to the storylines means its extremely narrow and difficult to expand on, or have variety in.

     

    I've never been able to put my finger on what the problem is.  It's technically run 10 stories - each class plus two plays through as dark and light in the Zakuulan expansions: the story in Eternal Throne and Fallen Empire plays out very differently if you're pure dark, pure light, or even some mix of the two.)

     

    After that it's ... well, do dailies (like WoW), raid (like WoW - though I'm not a raider so maybe the ones in SWTOR aren't very good?), and/or pvp (like WoW).  So what makes it work for WoW but not SWTOR?

     

    Other than the community being so toxic that most players prefer to solo and just run their dailies in peace while waiting for new story content.  It's very much a game you can sub for a month a year and enjoy - I know a lot of people who do just that (I was one for the first four years - this is the longest I've stayed subbed and it's honestly to support the game more than anything else at this point). 

     

    I used to the same with WoW, though - I referred to it as Aughtoberfest because I'd sub every October for a month before remembering why I unsubbed in the first place. )

  20. Another vote for Held Action - grab if she's already in his path, Grab By if she has to 'intercept'.

     

    Alternatively, if she's already in the way, Held action - Leg Sweep.  That will end his move nicely.

     

    Another alternative might be Dive for Cover - which specifically allows you to leap in the way and take a hit for someone else.  Why not leap in the way, period? Once you're in their path their movement becomes a Move Through (basically they crash into/trip over you - you become a Wall), which may impair their movement (as per Move Through)

     

    (Actually a pretty neat and thematic trick if that's allowed and you have knockback resistance from some source: Vision leaps in the way in his density increased state and Rhino is stopped in his tracks)

  21. SWTOR's latest server merges are under way.  After it's done it will be down to five - two North America, 3 europe (French, German, English localizations).

     

    It's been a few years since the last great merging but I'm a little sad that the two most populated launch servers (Harbinger and Ebon Hawk) are now folding into the two new servers instead of being the destination for many of the merges like last time: they probably account for 60% (or more) of the population of the 17 servers in play until today (which is why the merges are happening).

     

    Looking forward to logging in and seeing what kind of damage was done to my account wide storage, character names, strongholds, and legacy names...

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