Ockham's Spoon

Re: Limitations on Combat Skill Levels - same as the attack itself? Hugh, you are right that the levels have the same utility for a static character, so on one level you want them to cost the same amount. But if Lightbeam gets to spend XP and encounter lots of different situations then there is some distinction. Let us assume Lightbeam figures out how to focus his Photon Blast so that it does work in Darkness fields. If he bought his CSL straight out, then he can use them when the limitation on Photon Blast is bought off. If he bought his CSL as the tracer that doesn't work in Darkness, then he has to spend extra XP to buy the limitation off on his levels too. The advantage to buying the CSL outright is that he can advance more quickly later. The situation is similar, though not as profound perhaps, to a character that buys his powers with the limitation "Not useable underwater" because he knows the character is only going to be used once in a desert setting. If the character is never going to gain XP, you might well have a much different character than one that is designed to develop over the course of a campaign. My real contention though, is that if you have limitations on levels, or any power, they should make sense for the sfx. They shouldn't be taken just because it saves a few points. I don't mind if a good character concept saves points, but I don't want to encourage munchkin builds.

Re: Here be dragons... or Dragon? If you are going to err, do so on the side of too powerful. A powerful dragon might not finish off the PC's for any number of reasons (the PC's aren't worth troubling with, it wants the PC's to live so they can spread the fearsome its reputation, it just gets bored with the PC's, it has a hot date with that cute dragon on the other side of the forest, etc.) but a wimpy dragon just gets killed which will only compound problem of overconfidence in the PC's. You can define the dragon's breath as a Killing attack or a normal one, or even give it a Multipower to give it both if that is convenient. As noted above, a big PRE attack in the beginning will put the PC's at a serious disadvantage, especially if followed up with a tail-sweep or area affect fire breath that hits the whole party.

Re: Limitations on Combat Skill Levels - same as the attack itself? I think the question you need to ask is "Does it make sense that the CSL have this limitation?" Case 1: The hero Lightbeam has a Photon Blast attack that does not work in Darkness fields. He practices regularly with it so he is a pretty good shot. Can he buy CSL with the limitation "Not in Darkness fields"? No, because that doesn't reflect the sfx of the skill. Case 2: Per Case 1 except that Lightbeam never practices with his Photon Blast. But he can make a little tracer to help him aim, like a laser targeting spot. Can he buy CSL with the limitation "Not in Darkness fields"? Yes, because the sfx is such that it makes sense. Now the question is why would anyone take Case 1? Hopefully because you are building the character to conception and not just scrounging for extra points. More practically, as Xavier points out, it ultimately leads to more flexibility as you sink XP into it. Also, there are some things you couldn't reasonably do with the tracer, like use those levels to bounce shots.

Re: Here be dragons... or Dragon? Let them fight a dragon, not Balakarven Blacksmoke, but a suitably powerful dragon to give them a serious challenge (I'd recommend some Damage Reduction and/or Damage Negation). Then mention that Blacksmoke is way more powerful than the dragon they only narrowly dispatched, so they won't be so eager to tangle with Blacksmoke. Now if you want to be nice, the dragon they kill was encroaching on Blacksmoke's territory, so Blacksmoke is favorably inclined toward the PCs (not that he couldn't have dispatched the rival, but the PCs saved him the trouble). If you want to make the PCs sweat, the dragon they killed was one of Blacksmoke's children. Blacksmoke might be indifferent, dragons not being very maternal or considering any spawn that couldn't handle a few adventurers to be a weakling anyway, or he might be angry. He may send them on a side quest to mollify him, like retrieving the slain dragon's hoard. Make the PCs sweat more by noting Blacksmoke may or may not know the exact amount and composition of the hoard. Do the PCs keep some for themselves or not? What happens if a thief or a fairy playing a prank steals some of the treasure?

Re: The Lost Cover Art Caption Contests: Issue #53 "Paging Dr. Moreau"

Re: The Lost Cover Art Caption Contests: Issue #52 "Not the Cuddly Bunny Dimension. Again."

Re: The Lost Cover Art Caption Contests: Issue #54 "When Cub Scouts bite off more than they can chew"

Re: TV show concept

Re: TV show concept There is a fine balance between having fun with the powers, which draws viewer in initially, and telling a good story (this week on Smallville, Clark amazingly encounters even more kryptonite!). The powers play an important role, but they shouldn't be the only thing. And as sinanju points out, you really need a lot of clever people writing so that you don't leave open loopholes or make the storyline too contrived or let the empowered characters become too powerful just because it is convenient in one episode (seriously, Peter Petrelli in Heroes had to be an aggravatingly stupid individual to keep him from dominating everything). I have no illusions about doing TV myself, but I would love to see Joss Whedon do an X-Men type series on TV; not the X-Men but mutants of his own creation.

Re: Here comes the swarm! I've built swarms as a single creature with an AoE attack of one sort or another, and then given it 75% Resistant Damage Reduction, Not vs. AoE attacks, to represent that it is hard to kill a swarm with a sword. Also give it Desolid, only to fit through small cracks, to let it get through grates and under doors and the like. This build lets the swarm be a creature the heroes encounter or a summoned monster if it is a wizard spell. I usually assume if the swarm takes enough damage it disperses, so I never bothered pro-rating the damage based on the size (BDY) of the swarm, but it wouldn't be hard to slap a limitation on its attack like that.

Re: Dangerous Beauty Striking Appearance is built as +5 PRE only when appearance might be a factor. That pretty much sounds like what you want to me, so I would just buy Dangerous Beauty with the Striking Appearance talent.

Re: Immunity to cancer I agree that if cancer is not going to come up often in your campaign, then 3pts might be more than is reasonable to spend on it. But I have had campaigns with supervillains or monsters that inflict cancerous diseases, and I assumed if the question was being asked that cancer might be in the pipeline for Steve's campaign, even if immunity to cancer was just protection from some NND attack. Of course from a roleplaying standpoint, these cancers are usually curable with super-science, magic, or a side adventure of some sort, so it isn't a grim as cancer in real life.

Re: Spiderman's Web I didn't think Teleport could add/remove velocity by itself. Did that change in 6e?

Re: Out There Idea: Universe as Mind Class Reality manipulation by mentally connecting with the universe is a clever sfx, but mechanically this is a suite of powers that are not mental at all. For what you have detailed, I would go with a VPP that requires an EGO roll at -1/10 Active points (-½) accessed in the VPP.

Re: Immunity to cancer The problem is that cancer is a generic term for a broad class of ailments with various causes, but those causes are not always known. Once manifested, I would classify it as a disease though, so for purposes of Life Support if you were immune to all diseases (5 pts) that would cover cancer. If the character is only immune to cancer but not the flu or other diseases, I would peg it at 3 points, which is what you would pay to be immune to all bacterial infections or all viral infections, but slightly less that it would cost be be immune to all zootoxins or phytoxins (4 pts).

Re: Spiderman's Web Just make the web a Barrier. Put a +0 Advantage on it "Does not inflict impact damage on objects crashing into it". It can still be broken if the object crashing into it does enough damage, but it is too springy to inflict damage itself. You can't use it to hurt a fast moving supervillain, but you can use it to save people from falling. Consider we are trying to replicate comic book moves. Now if Spidey was just standing on the ground, he could catch MJ. Realistically her neck would be broken falling off a skyscraper and having her decent stopped over the space of a meter, but this is the comics and if you catch a falling person they are unharmed. So I don't see why you couldn't just define a Barrier to work the same way.

Re: "The orcs stole your underwear again..." I've tried a few comedy campaigns, but I find they always slide from witty to zany to surreal and any thought of plot or character gets completely derailed. A little comedy can enhance a campaign, but a campaign focused on comedy loses everything else. Its the difference between adding salt to your food and having salt be the main course.

Re: Modifing the APG: Possesion Possession in the APG is 60pts for a "Mind Control roll" of 40; that is pretty close to 12d6 Mind Control for both cost and effect, so you could just do a straight substitution. You would have to decide if a more powerful possession would then just add dice of Mind Control or if you would use the Possession rules thereafter. It sort of depends how the possession is going to work (e.g. will it include the Telepathy aspects, etc.) as to what a fair cost is. It would be a reasonable approach though, allowing Possession to mirror other mental powers, although I don't know if you gain much functionally.

Re: 4E D&D Converstion I haven't played D&D for long enough that I am not familiar with the exact mechanics of Attack of Opportunity, but I will throw out a couple of points to ponder. First, any character with a held action can attack "out of turn" as it were and before their normal initiative. Players who are aware of good tactics can put this to their advantage, which exploits the flexibility of the system, especially if they have above average SPD. If you like you could allow characters to abort to an attack only in the case of an AoO to make it easier to do. But that doesn't give any extra attacks; if you want that you can let the characters buy +1 SPD, Only for held actions to make AoO (-1). That is only one extra attack per turn, but it is pretty cheap, shouldn't be unbalancing, and that may be enough for the flavor. If you want to be able to do lots of AoO, you can buy a higher SPD or go with the Trigger suggested above.

Re: Uncontrolled Deflection in 6E Well, yeah, if the attack is unblockable then the robot arms can't block it anyway, right? You do make a valid point that the player needs to consider if the mechanical effects of the power will cover the sfx of the power for various scenarios though.

Re: How would you make: characteristic drain/aid I would go with the Drain and Aid combo (either linked or triggered or whatever suits the flavor of the power) over a Transfer partly because I think it reflects what you are trying to do a little better, but mostly because it will make it easier to shift it to 6e should you ever want to.

Re: Uncontrolled Deflection in 6E (headsmack) Of course! Repped.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Yeah, D&D never let plausibility get in the way of a good method for killing PCs. I once had a fighter who was the last of the party (which totaled 20 including henchmen at the onset) trying to retrieve a magical gewgaw from one of those classic dungeons that was a maze of traps and monsters will little discernable purpose other than killing adventurers. He has the gewgaw and was 50 feet from the exit when he was vacuumed up by a gelatinous cube on a random monster encounter. So close...

Re: Uncontrolled Deflection in 6E How about +4 SPD, only for Blocking (-2)? Actually I think the Missile Deflection is probably the most appropriate since the arms are essentially a separate entity and are blocking for him. It would almost be like having a Duplicate with abilities limited only to protecting the original, which you would buy as Missile Deflection.

Re: Fear (5th Ed) You can also go with Change Environment (fear aura) which will force a PRE or EGO roll (at whatever penalty you buy it to). That can be pretty effective too, although the player and the GM need to decide what the reasonable effects of failing the PRE or EGO roll is (run away, can't attack the terrifying character, stand in terror at half DCV, or whatever is appropriate). The GM might decide on a case by case basis or make it a blanket effect. Edit: whoops, beat to the punch!