Klytus

This solution is so clean and elegant, I think I'd make an exception in my 5th Edition games.

Our gaming group is one of those rare critters where women players actually outnumber the men. When we play Champions, the men tend to go for simple handsome. COM is where those extra few points that are left over after everythig else has been bought go. The exception being Moleculon, a shape-shifter who is an "All American Hero" template, so his default COM is 22. The women are the ones who have the arms-race to be the most beautiful one in the group (COM 18+). They have also gone out of their way to make appearance a major part of the character. Most noteworth is Anaba. She is a 7' tall Amerindian shaman with legs that won't quit, knockers that would make Dolly Parton jealous, and a costume that looks like a cat-suit what got all torn up in a fight and no one ever bothered to fix it. I'd post the drawing, only she isn't MY character. In another game, there is Winterstorm, a flashy attention-loving energy projector with a COM of 22, the Distinctive Feature: Gorgeous (Tough to hide, major reaction), and the Psych Lim: Annoyed by Sexist Remarks. The one female character I've ever seen where COM wasn;t cranked up was Jane Doe, an invisible mentalist who simply blended right into the background. Anaonymity was part of her schtick, so COM stayed at 10.

This is cool. Now all I need is a good Avatar pic and I'm set...

Re: Re: Foreign Icons Why not? The Europeans (and especially the French) have far fewer hang-ups about that sort of thing than Americans could ever hope to have (or is that not-have?)

The one event that springs to mind was in a Vampire: the Masquerade game I was in. The characters were newly-Embraced, like the just-made-a-vampire-last-night kinda new. Well one of the characters, Geofry, thought it odd that he had not gone to the bathroom for almost a day. In spite of the fact that he didn't even have the urge to go, he went to the bathroom and tried to pee. "Roll your Willpower," says the Storyteller. "This is such an un-natural thing for Vampires to do, your difficulty is 10" (on 10 sided dice, this is almost impossible.) Six dice are rolled. "Ok," sez Geofry's player. "I have three successes!" Howls of pain echoed throughout the house as Geofry :ahem: lost three Blood Points into the potty.

Skin-tight costumes are not only easy to draw, they are easy to move in & easy to conceal in a small place when you need to change clothes in a hurry. As a Ren-Faire geek who wears tights (and who has the legs for it), I know that they are comfortable and much easier to deal with than pants. Though I do confess that the lack of pockets is a pain. Uniforms and large outfits may look good, but having clothes that do not get in the way when you're in a fight is a must. The one part of the comic convention I find wholy unreaslistic is the wearing the costume underneath street clothes. Unless you're Superman, wearing long-underwear under your suit all day long is simply too hot to endure. Never mind the fact that unless your costume is the fabric equivilant of a bathing suit (like Liberty:the American Girl) anybody standing less than 5' away from you will notice that you've got "extra padding" under your clothes.. especially if you have a cape under there, too! Never mind how impossible it is to hide a non-white costume beneath a white shirt.

Nobody remembers the Crimson Fox from Justice Leauge International? Skin-tight costume with the exception of a hood-like cowl. And even without the costume, she was still a fox! Oh la la! She also took advantage of stereotypes and hammed up her genuine French accent to make it sound like she was an American movie-star doing a bad French accent.

I know that there have been countless arguments on the topic of whether mutant power-suppression technology and such actually make sense, if it is truly consistent, just a writers crutch or what have you. I am not interested in that. For the sake of this specific post, let us take it as a given that in this campaign world, any and all "mutant" powers can be deactivated by the use of dampening fields and/or special collars. What is the best in-game mechanic to handle this? 1) Simply use Suppress? - I don't like this option, because for very powerful mutants, it would require HUGE amounts of dice in Suppress to turn off powerful mutants. For every device to be this powerful makes little sense. And in the comics where this tech is displayed, the same power suppressor that can keep ANY mutant in check, whether it is Rogue, Magneto or Beast. 2) Make every mutant buy a Vulnerability: x2 Effect from Mutant-Suppressors? - This is a little better, as it requires the Suppression tech to be less powerful to affect all mutants equally. But there is still the problem of very powerful mutants having some of their powers functional while under the collar - yet this also defies how it is portrayed in the comics. 3) Make each mutant buy a Physical Limitation: Powers do not work in an anti-mutant zone? - Simple and elegant. The problem is: how much do you charge for this? Clearly, this would not cost as much for a martial artist who has only spent 30 points for one mutant power when compared to an energy projector who spent everything BUT 50 points on powers. 4) Make every mutant in the game buy all of their powers with the Limitation: Does not work in a mutant-suppression zone. - This approach has the benefit of a universal weakness. It also clearly defines which parts of a stat are "mutant-powered" and which are not. I mean, if you have a brick with a 60 STR, exactly how much of that STR is because of his mutation? All but 20 points?15? 10? Making the player buy his "mutant" STR with the limitation ends the guess work. The obvious drawback, of course, is that it is very easily abused: mutants will have more real points to spend on their powers if everything has a flat -¼ Limitation on it. 5) GM Fiat. - I hate this option, as it makes it impossible for the players to make or use the tech when there might be good in-game reasons for them to do so. Opinions and feedback, please.

I, too, find it hard to fault players for building "effecient" characters. Even the good players in my group, who build a character for concept and role-play, will eek every last point they can out of that concept, and then some. For example; There is a Guyver (sp?)-like chaacter in one of my games named Star Sentinel. Most of the powers are only active when the alien symbiot bonded to the host is activated, thus a large slew of OIHID powers. But the whole schtick of an alien organism and the host learning how to fully utilize it leaves the door open for a very large variety of powers to be bought and develped down the road. It also means many powers can be bought at discount with the OIHID Limit. And I don't have any problems with it: I'm cool with the conept, he does not enjoy advantages over his teammates because of it, and the player has fun with it.

We have a house-rule for critical hits, which simulate the effect of getting a solid or perfect hit. If you make the to-hit roll by half or more, (that is, you need a 12 to hit the target and roll a 6) its a critical hit. If you crit, roll the dice for damage. Any die-roll of 1, 2 or 3 is counted as if it was a 4. If your crit value is 4 or more, and you roll a natural 3, your attack does max damage/max effect. Critical hits do not apply to AoE or Explosion atatcks. Yes, foes who are Entangled can be hit for crits more easily. Sucks to be them. But it still takes a to-hit of 3 to do max damage.

Nicely done, SuperPheemy. That spells things out perfectly.

Re: Bricks That sounds a lot like the "Dynamo" brick in one of our games. SHE is a 4'10" powerhouse who has two types of absorbtion. Physical attacks feed her STR while energy Attacks feed her STUN. What makes her fun is how she's played. First of all, her costume is based on a figure-skaters outfit, but everyone teases her because it makes her look like a cheerleader instead. Never mind the fact someone accidentally called her "Domino", and now she gets called by that name more frequently than Dynamo. Then, there is the matter of her thick Southern accent. When the GM asks her, "So what are you going to do?" the reply is always, "I'm 'onna thump 'im!" She also has a powerful hatred for "suits" or anyone in power armor. She regards it as "cheating", so she will always attack any bad-guy in a suit first, and will not stop until she has peeled the guy out of the suit and destroyed it. Needless to say, THIS has given her a bad rep in the press as an overly-violent heroine. To give you an example, Dynamo's player, having repeadedly wailed on some poor body asked "Is this guy out yet?". The reply was. "Out? He was at GM's Discretion three thumps ago!"

I've done several villain teams, most of which have been quite successful - or at least they gave my players a good run for their money. The Gemstones: A team whose super-powers all come from magical gemstones. At first they were just crooks, but now they hire themselves out as mercenaries. - Star-Sapphire: The leader, an energy projector who can aid and heal her team, all from the safety of her globular force-wall. - Amber: Carries an amber shield, has missile deflection, and can encase foes in amber. - Diamond: Her flech is permmanently turned to diamond. A brick with armor-piercing blows. - Opal: The team mentalist. - Ruby: A happy-go-lucky (very lucky) energy projector. - Tiger-Eyes: Martial-artist. The Elementals: A group of magical beings who are the living embodiment of the classic elements. - Geo: an earth-elemental and brick - Pyro: the fire elemental - Whelm: the water elemental who can mingle among humans with her shape-shifting powers - Mariah: the air elemental - Void: a being of nothingness, desolid to most attacks and able to use powerful drains in that form. This dude scare my players more than any other bad guy I ever made. The Crudaders (formerly the Dominators): A team of supers bent on conquering the world in order to save it from itself. They are the leaders of a small island nation in the bahamas, and are quite popular as there is almsot no crime and everyone has free electricity. - Magnetron: A scientist who created a generator capable of delivering cheap, clean energy. His work was sabotaged by agents of the oil industry, which exploded and gave the man his powers. Bitter an disillusioned by the self-serving forces in the world, he is now determined to create a world where such forces do not interfere with the honest development ofhuman achievement. - Monolith (with all appologies to the board-resitent of the same name) A super-heavy mentally-retarded brick, he obeys Magnetron's every command. - Swiftstrike: A speedster/martial-artists, he is a true-believer in Magnetron's vision and cause. - Micro Lady: A shrinker and former CIA spy, she knows what shenanegans the world powers are up to, and has decided that Magnetron is the best bet for saving the world. - LadyLastic: Given her powers by accident, she is only alligned with magnetron to protect her from KRAKEN, for they were the ones to give her her powers. - Domina: A mentalist who aids Magnetron in his goals, but she is a spy for the Dominion, an order of mentalists who are also bent on global domination, but not for altruistic reasons.

Celine ROTFLMAO! You named the Ego-boosing drug "Celine!" I love it!

Now you're scaring me, dude. KRAKEN is the name I gave my VIPER group...

Unicorn Ok, Mr. Vimes, Consider UNICORN stolen as well. I never did like the IPIL acronym I came up with, anyway.

I am such an idiot. I could never figure out how to get the U.S. to willingly be a part of an international organization with jurisdiction within its borders. I never even considered the NATO angle. I sense some changes being made in my universe in the near future...

The Heart-Attack Hyper-Caffeene Pill: 3d6 Aid (30 pts) to STUN and END (+¼) Fade Rate 5 per minute (+¼), IIF (pills -¼), 1 charge (-2) , Extreme Side Effect: STUN and END drained the same amount Aided for 10 minutes after the effects fade (-2) Total: 9 real points. Plus : +10 REC (20 points). A 1 Hour single Continuing Charge (-¼) IIF: pill (-¼), Extreme Side Effect: Addiction and withdrawl. TOTAL: 13 real points. GRAND TOTAL: 22 points.

I have a few, but these two are my favorites. PURITY: Sort of like Genocide, only they go after ALL meta-humans, not just mutants. They don't use robots, only agents. What makes them dangerous, though, is that they have the most advanced tech on Earth. They have teleportation tech - something no one else has - skin-tight uniforms that protect like heavy battle-armor, small but powerful blaster pistols... and all of their gear disintigrates if handled by non PURITY members or kept away from PURITY agents for more than 1 minute. Makes studying the tech impossible :smirk: The Dominion: A group of mentalists bent on world domination. Not through conquest, but by using their powers to either control important people or learn their secrets for blackmail. Thier existance is an open secret, but no one knows who their leaders are, or even how many members they have. The agents they do use for muscle have been mentally conditioned to be unable to betray Dominion secrets. P.S. It nice to not be Incompetent anymore...

Nevr mind continuing charges on stats... I'd go with a simple Aid to the stats you want boosted, set the fade rate to the duration you have in mind, and define the charges as whatever delivery system you like: pills, slap-patches, injections, etc. Of course, there should be built-in side-effects and Limitations to the wonder drug: highly addictive and/or suffering from a stat drain when the effects of the drug fade.

In a not-so subtlke attempt to discuss something other than who can or cannot beat-up the Big D., let me ask this... Asside from his staggering power, do folks out there actually LIKE Dr. D as a villain? If so, why? And if not, why not?

Why are you a hardass if you want Limitatioins to be limiting? Any power can be used to abuse the rules if the GM doesn't monitor it or enforce the rules. A VPP is very flexible, and many Limitatons are not very limiting under certain circumstances - like the example you cited about Extra Time taken out of combat. The solution is provided on page 179 of FREd, in big bold letters: A Limitation which doesn;t limit the character isn't worth any bonus!" Granted, Limitations that can be shifted from one use of a power to another, such as Gestures and Limitations, may seem weak. However, so long as they place a restriction on the power at the time it is used, it is Limiting. Now, if there was a limit on the Control Cost, that would be worth something, as it must be used every time. One good idea I've seen is to have a Variable Limitation on the Control Cost. That is, every time a spell is cast, there must be a fixed amount of Limitations on each spell. If you set the Var Lim at -1, then the caster must have at least that much in Limitatons on each spell cast, a common example being Gestures, Incantations and 1/2 DCV concentration. If they are tied up, they'd have to come up with a different Limitations to get the -1, maybe x3 END or Side Effects. There are always ways to make sure Limitations have teeth.

I agree with the VPP route. But if you want to save yourself (and the GM) some headaches, keep a list of pre-defined spells handy. By all means, make up powers on the fly - tis why VPP's are so nice - just write down any new stuff you come up with so you can do it again without figuring out the advantages and lims all over again.

And just to complicate matters, I've heard of so-called hyper-velocity weapons that fire bullets so fast, they can kill the target even if they get hit in the arm. In theory, the velocity of the round when it hits sends a shock-wave through an artery until it reaches the heart, where either the heart itself or the aorta will rupture. Of course, this is simply what I have heard. I have no idea if its real, but it does make for a scary uber-weapon for a sniper to use against the heoes.

Almost every hero in my games is Watched by PATRIOT (my version of PRIMUS). The theory being that any metahuman using their powers publicly is a potential threat. They need to be monitored closely so that if there is a need to take them down, they have as complete a picture of theri powers and abilities as possible. Secret Magical Societies might be watching anybody with latent or visible magical powers to see if they will become a threat. In any event, the reason Watched is a disad is because should a time ever come when the Watchers decide to come after you, they are likely to have comprehensive info, which will definately put you at a disadvantage.