Ockham's Spoon

Re: Jokes I am told the following is a true story, which would be cute, but even if it isn't it is still funny. A father was talking to his 3 year old son and says "Want to hear a secret?" The boy nods vigorously. The dad says "I love you!" The boy smiles and says "Want to hear a secret?" The dad smiles and nods. The boy says "I'm Batman!"

Re: The Wondrous Lady Teodora, Player Nonpareil Overall a great character, but I am curious about her Distinctive Features. She gets points for referring to herself in the 3rd person AND points for her "style"; isn't referring to herself in 3rd person part of her style? Also, why doesn't she get anything for being a statuesque anthropomorphic fox?

Re: Gates and gating I think all you need is the Increased Mass adder. If it takes a long time to move big objects, then have the first x2 mass with the limitation Extra Phase, the second x2 mass with Full Turn, etc. Really this is just a Teleportation with a set of partial limitations on the Increased Mass.

Re: Damage Limits In the past I have always defaulted to the rule that you can't do more than double the number of DCs from a weapon. If you want to add more damage, you have to start with a more powerful weapon. I have toyed with the idea of basing the maximum DCs on the character's point total, something like MaxDC = (Total points)/20; the exact formula would depend on the power level of the campaign and whether it was 5e or 6e. In a similar fashion the max CV and number of levels would be capped by some fraction of the total character points. The idea here is to simulate a feeling of level advancement ala D&D, but I have never actually gotten to try it out so I don't know how well it would work.

Re: Gaming in the Magic: The Gathering setting I ran a Fantasy Hero campaign where the magic system was loosely based on MtG. Wizards collected or created magical trinkets, sigils, and glyphs instead of cards [Aside: I mistakenly referred to them as "magic charms" and thereafter the players all called them "Lucky Charms" and we were plagued with silly cereal and leprechaun jokes]. Each had an END Reserve to power their spells, with the size and REC of the Reserve dependent on the number of mana trinkets they had. Most spells were not Summon specifically (though some were), but rather had summoning as a sfx. The spell colleges matched the colors in MtG, and most wizards only cast spells of a single color. Each college required a KS: Appropriate College which could be used as a complimentary roll to the Magic Skill roll. Other KS could also act as complimentary rolls, so if the wizard had KS: Angels, he could get a bonus to his roll for any angel-based spell he had. Although the actual geography did not affect mana, there were ley lines that boosted or hindered different types of magic in some places. How well did it work? About as well as any Hero magic system. What I will say is that it resembled MtG but didn't have the same flavor, not because I couldn't create the spells or monsters, but because the key to a really good MtG deck is the synergy between the cards. The Hero system is by and large too well balanced to exploit loop-holes in the system, which is what MtG really encourages. That is a good thing for most RPGs, but it does mean that you will have a hard time getting that MtG flavor and keeping the game balanced at the same time.

Re: Gremlins I think Christopher has the right idea with Summon. If the gremlins were all of one mind or recombined at some point, then Duplication would be better, but Summon fits the bill nicely here.

Re: Well, look who just caught up... I think you may be taking my statements to be more absolute than I play them. I think good role playing should provide bonuses to the rolls, or penalties if it is really bad. Yes, the player can just make his Persuasion roll and it will work, but I would like to encourage more interaction than that. And most of the time if the player makes some inappropriate statement I don't immediately make them fail, I point it out and tell them that isn't likely to fly given the situation. If they persist in being boneheaded, well then I will penalize their roll (in the case of the pistol polisher I did mention that the NPC was not likely to react well to that, but the player had his character say it anyway). Combat rolls are a little different, because they tend to be much more repetative so it is hard to be creative with each attack or block. But I will grant Surprise Manuever bonuses for clever attacks, just like I would grant bonuses for a well-phrased argument on a Persuasion roll. To my thinking that just encourages more colorful gameplay which makes it more enjoyable for everyone.

Re: Low-End/Less Flashy Superpowers suggestions needed... Okay, yeah, this is Aquaman I am most familiar with, and on the Superfriends the writers had to invent water scenarios just so he didn't seem useless. My apologies to Aquaman fans, but I have never seen him in a situation where his role wasn't either contrived or comic.

Re: Well, look who just caught up... Well of course if the character paid points for the skill or power I will let them use it. But I want an attempt at Persuasion to be more than "I want to persuade the security guard to open the door. Okay, I made my Persuasion roll, we're in." Generally if the character makes the roll, then they succeed. But if they really screw up the role-playing part, I might suggest they reconsider their approach or possibly assign a negative modifier to the roll, especially if they are being flip about it. The example that comes to mind was a gun-slinger character trying a Seduction roll on an NPC heroine that had a strong feminist streak with the pick-up line "Why don't we meet later, sweet cheeks, and I'll let you polish my pistol." The fact he made his roll meant that he didn't get punched in the kisser, but she didn't go out with him because it would be totally out of character.

Re: Low-End/Less Flashy Superpowers suggestions needed...

Re: Well, look who just caught up... Social interaction is part of human culture, so on one level I can see a good argument for making some Interaction skills Everyman skills. But as a GM, if I want an NPC to be good at some Interaction skill, I will certainly buy it for him. And as far a PCs are concerned, if they want to try an use an Interaction skill they don't have, well, that is what role-playing is for. Act it out and convince me, the GM, and I will consider it. If the PC happens to have said Interaction skill and he makes the dice roll, then I will be more lenient in deciding how the target of the skill reacts, but you still need to play it out.

Re: Seed of Life spell Normally Healing doesn't have any range. If you buy only Ranged for it, you can heal across the room, but only one person at a time. If you buy only AoE for it, you can heal everyone nearby, but you can only heal across the room if the radius of the AoE encompasses the whole room. If you buy both Ranged and AoE, you can stand on top of the castle wall and heal a crowd of soldiers fighting below, but that won't heal yourself unless the AoE is really big so that you are still inside the radius. The Charges are trickier, because normally you can only use a Charge once a day. But because you bought it as Recoverable, a reasonable GM would let you recast the spell to "recover" the charges. Otherwise you could only cast it once a day, and after the charges were used up you would be out of luck until the following day. And just for my own nitpicky rules clarification, in 6e the Trigger advantage is reduced by ¼ when you slap a time limit on it, so it lowers the overall advantage rather than requiring a custom limitation.

Re: Human bird wings Well my apologies for spreading false technological break-throughs. Thanks to all who caught the hoax.

Re: Seed of Life spell Let me first say I am not familiar with Guild Wars, so my comments are primarily about the build, not the flavor. You could build this with either Trigger or Time Limit, but I don't think you need both. For the Time Limit option, that would just have the Heal running all the time, so then you would slap a custom limitation on it "Only works on Phases in which caster is hit", say -½. For the Trigger route, you would have Trigger (when caster hit +¼), Trigger resets as Zero Phase Action (+¼) OR resets automatically (+½), Trigger expires after 1 minute (-¼) for a total advantage of +¼ or +½ depending on whether you want it to reset automatically or not. Also, you purchased Limited Range, but I am not sure that is necessary. If you just buy AoE Radius with no range, then the effect is centered on the caster. If you buy it with Range, then you can center the AoE Radius somewhere else. Since I am not familiar with the original spell I don't know which you are looking for. Also, the Limited Range you purchased was 20m, but the AoE Radius at +¼ is only a 4m radius so you aren't affecting a large area particularly if that is important.

I find this interesting primarily as a technical achievement, muscle-powered flight. Previous inventors failed apparently because they could not control the wings properly with just their arms; there is more to it than just flapping. It also occurs to me that it gives some basis for the wingspan that would be required by a race of avian humanoids. Granted they might have hollow bones or something to lighten the load, but that would almost be mandatory just to achieve efficient flight (barring a low-G planet). As cool as this is, any kind of decent flight time with this gear would be exhausting. www.humanbirdwings.net

Re: Jokes A man walks into an ice cream shop. "Give me a double dip chocolate ice cream cone." he says. The shop owner tells him "I'm sorry, we are all out of chocolate." "Okay, then just give me a single scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cone." he responds. The shop owner tells him "Sir, we don't have any chocolate ice cream at all." "Oh, all right. Then give me some chocolate ice cream in a cup." The owner says "Do you see the 'straw' in strawberry ice cream?" "Yes." "Do you see the 'van' in the vanilla ice cream?" "Yes." "Do you see the 'frick' in the chocolate ice cream?" "There is no 'frick' in chocolate ice cream!" "That's what I have been trying to tell you!"

Re: Detect this! Very nice. I will have to borrow that idea

Re: Can be used as... Of course you are right. I meant Uncontrolled, not Persistant. My bad.

Re: Can be used as... You could also have a Multipower with a TK slot bought as Persistant so that it would last after you switched slots to a Killing Attack. Or make the TK and KA slots variable so you could shift points between the two for either a stronger TK hold and weaker KA or vice-versa. As Hyper-Man pointed out, having an oversized pool would help here. Personally I like the Martial Arts approach, but I am a big MA fan and I realize it wouldn't be appropriate for all characters.

Re: Balrog in a superhero world I use nominally Fantasy-level monsters in supers games all the time. Just scale up the defenses and DC of their attacks to bring them in line with the heroes they will be facing and you are good to go. For big monsters like dragons or the Balrog, I would add some Damage Reduction too.

Re: Another Kickstarter Of Interest: Solution Squad I have not heard of the Numbers League, but it sounds good. Thanks for the tip!

Re: Another Kickstarter Of Interest: Solution Squad This sounds almost custom made for my son; he loves comics but is bored with math. Count me in!

Re: Detect this! Because at the time of the build we decided that he would be getting a free power (Detect Righteous) by taking a Complication unless he bought the Detect as well. Being able to determine the intent of someones actions is a potentially powerful ability, and could easily mess up any number of situations where characters are engaged in subterfuge, so it seemed reasonable he should have to pay for it. The Susceptibility just made sure the Detect didn't get used indicriminately. It would be like taking a Complication for being really heavy, but you still have to pay for Knockback Resistance. The Detect Righteous was based on Touch of course, you can make of that what you will.

Re: Regeneration as a Defense The rules state that you can't abort to a Recovery, and you can't abandon a declared Recovery to take another action unless the GM permits. In games I have played, the GM has generally permitted aborting to defensive actions after a Recovery has been declared, but the character doesn't get the Recovery then of course. But that is a GM call, so the extra SPD option is only viable if the GM is willing.

Re: some useful toys Nice stuff, thanks for sharing