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Christopher R Taylor

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Everything posted by Christopher R Taylor

  1. I would be fine with characters being unhittable by physical or energy attacks, if that's their main thing. For example I had a game where a guy played a crossbow specialist with the usual gadget warheads. His OCV was 12 with that thing. He never missed, not once in the campaign. That was his thing. He wasn't the most dangerous enemy, or the toughest or fastest, he just was accurate. That kind of character I am okay with, I like player characters to shine, as long as they don't dominate. But if you're unhittable AND really dangerous AND really fast etc, well we have a problem. Like Lonewolf and Gauntlet said, its about being challenged. If you can create a challenge for them, then its okay.
  2. One comic I particularly liked was Wally feeling a pressure against the back of his neck. Then he noticed that everyone in the movie theater, and the movie, were frozen. He'd had someone shoot him, the bullet touched him, and he went into super speed mode defensively, so fast everything was frozen. And Wally was never as powerful as Barry. No, the Flash shouldn't ever be hit, but its very difficult to find a challenge for someone as powerful as DC makes their heroes. So their powers vary wildly between comic to comic and even page to page in the same comic. That happened constantly in the Flash TV show, he was either faster than a bullet or wasn't, depending on what the scene required. Drove me nuts.
  3. Another rule is that if a hero does a heel turn and becomes a bad guy, they gain 50% or more power level. Conversely, a villain who turns good loses a good half of their power or more.
  4. I cannot imagine writing these posts on a phone, let alone something as long as you often will share.
  5. There seems to be some confusion here. I never said you shouldn't be on the internet, or shouldn't use the internet, or that it has no value or use. I just said you would be surprised how easy it is to do without if, for example, you ever had a chance or reason to. Like a power outage, or a vacation, camping in the mountains etc. Its surprisingly easy to break off and not be plugged in. Peaceful, even.
  6. Well I think there might be a false dichotomy being promoted here of either you are really tightly built with every point squeezed to its limit to make the most efficient and effective character possible... or you make a concept character that is a hapless clod incompetent in every way. I see it more as a combination of elements. You can have a fairly effective conceptual character and a conceptual efficient character. The character who builds in less efficient portions (such as the 10 CON mentalist) might not have quite as many points to spend on everything but its not crippling, either. And a tight concept might be more effective than the super efficient build simply because it is tight and works well as a package. And of course, there's the effect of role playing, where even if a character isn't the most powerful combat machine imaginable, they have other aspects and the game is about more than beating up the next bad guy. I mean, ideally. And then there's the GM who has the power to make things right. A good GM is not like a computer game, they can adjust the encounters, setting, events, and circumstances to give the "weaker character" a chance to shine and be useful or important even in the combat they may not excel in. Well, let's put it this way: if your concept is the full potential of a comic book speedster when logically followed through to their natural consequences and the way they are on occasion depicted... nobody has that many points and you cannot build that character. But you can build a speedster that acts much like a comic book speedster in most of their encounters. No, there's no chance anyone can shoot their freeze ray gun faster than the Flash can dodge it. No, Mirror Master could not reach over and push buttons on his wrist before the Flash could run around the world seven times, eat a pizza, and read a book, then stop the button pushing. And both of those things happen in the comics: the freeze ray goes off before Flash acts, Mirror Master pushes his silly buttons before the Flash can stop him.
  7. I agree, again, that the presentation could be less intimidating. That's what the Champions Begins project was about: presenting the rules in a simple, easily digestible form that even younger, less literate players could enjoy. But then, D&D has a pretty intimidating set of rules as well, its just almost everyone who learns, learns with and from someone who already knows how to play.
  8. Its amazing how easy it is to get by without the internet. Do without it a few days and you barely even miss it.
  9. I have toyed with the idea of randomizing phases etc (such as roll 2d6 and if you get your speed or under you can act, if you fail, you get +1 to your SPD each subsequent roll until you move, etc). The reason I abandoned all of that is because the way speed works according to the rules is tactics. Having predictable, knowable speed simulates someone's combat ability: you aren't necessarily faster with a higher speed, although often you are. You're just more skilled, experienced, and capable at combat. In the same way someone who practices the piano gets so used to where the keys are and what sequence gives what results that they don't even have to look or think about it, or someone who does a job so long and so often that they are much faster than others at the job, speed represents skill and tactical ability. Randomizing that makes the tactics not work any more and reduces speed to swiftness in combat, so I don't care for it.
  10. Oh, and while I am a Christian, I don't subscribe to the complex prophecy and timeline of dispensationalist premillennial types so I don't think the Left Behind series is Biblical or likely. But I do think it makes a really interesting, unique sort of sci fi apocalypse scenario that could be mined for ideas. Taken without the faith issues, it becomes a very strange setting that suddenly occurs not only without warning but without the ability to predict. It wouldn't even make sense for a while: why did everyone disappear? Where did they go? And why are these tyrannical things happening in the government? Why are people so awful to each other more than even before? Its a great setting for adventure and has a very unique flavor.
  11. I was always more focused on the character i was trying to make rather than ruthless efficiency, so I built bricks with 13 DEX and energy projectors with 11 CON. Was it the best possible build with secondary characteristics? No, but it fit the character design I had, no matter what the breakpoints were. This guy wasn't especially durable no matter how many points of END I'd get for free, so he had a low CON. But I admit that I was an outlier in this.
  12. There is a great apocalyptic scenario in the 4th edition VIPER book in which they postulate a situation where superbeings engage in so much war and conflict that they basically destroy everything except a few domed cities ruled, of course, by superbeings. Basically the supervillains won, and are dictators over cities which are isolated between wasteland and the city states are technological marvels. An uneasy truce remains between the cities. The PCs are a band of rebels who fight against the supers, obviously lose, and are exiled to the wastelands, where they have to try to survive. but they stumble upon an intact Viper base, hidden in the ruins not far away, and start using that equipment as a campaign against the supers, liberating their city, then moving on to other cities if they win. I was always enormously intrigued by this concept and wanted to run it as a campaign but my attempt only lasted one session.
  13. I could see him as Ghost Rider, with some effects on his voice when the demon (or another actor). I know nothing about the Shroud other than that he looks cool as hell. I would like to see Alpha Flight, with Guardian for sure. Not sure Keanu is a good match for him though.
  14. This reminds me of the old Wizard Magazine casting stuff in the early 90s. I should pull out my collection and scan a bunch of those.
  15. Of the existing characters that have been put on film I cannot picture Keanu's limited but effective range in any of them. Put him in the right role and he's great like John Wayne was. But anything outside that range and he looks ridiculous. I could easily see him as one of the cosmic entities, as Bazza noted, but they are either reduced to jokes or turned into abstractions like a space cloud Galactus in the movies.
  16. Yeah and while I basically understand the idea behind that ruling? It negates a lot of builds from the comics and effects from movies, books etc. I mean, technically you can build them, but it takes a zillion points. So its a violation of consistency between builds that greatly hampers simulating the genre which makes it... not a great rule. Look at how many points it would take just to part a swimming pool, let alone the Red Sea. It expensive enough already to do fancy stuff with TK without altering the area effect rules just in case Joey Munchkin finds a killer build. Stone shatters pretty easily though, it fragments. Softer things are harder to do permanent damage to in that way; water is noncompressible so I figured it should be somewhat near stone but not as high. Water also tends to absorb impact rather than be damaged by it, so its not something that is going to be easy to wipe out. I mean look at how much energy it takes just to get water to boil? How many body is that?
  17. God had a lot of points in TK to get the red sea to part; at the narrowest area where the Hebrews are said to have crossed is about 12 to 20 miles (19 to 32 km). Its 230 feet (about 37m) deep. That's a pretty enormous AE (there is a point at which the area effect becomes cheaper than buying just STR because of doubling). Thanks for the correction, I used a website to give volume and weight of water, and the 2000kg didn't feel right (because of cubing) but I was too tired to do the math personally.
  18. Remember again, you only have to affect a 2m area of water and that affects everything in the area the same way. Just like a 6d6 blast does the 6d6 to everything identically in a radius effect to each 2m area. I estimated a 2m area of water to have 16 body based on other substances, but I am open to debate on the subject.
  19. You'll all get a real boot out of this one: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/sports-illustrated-found-publishing-ai-generated-stories-photos-and-authors
  20. The nice thing about transform is that you can make the air into anything so it can be "water that defies gravity" if you want. The trick is to remember that area effect applies the same effect to the entire area, so you don't have to move all of the water, just however much 2 cubic meters of water weighs (2000 kg, I believe). That's a pretty hefty telekinesis still (around 32 STR) and you just apply it to an area effect line of the chosen size. Each and every 2m area in that line has 32 STR applied to it to push it to the side and hold it there.
  21. Transform works: air into water; but its special water that stays in the area without being held by boundaries. Probably a Major transform though that is a pretty radical change. Create Object from the Advanced Player Guide works well for this also: it actually makes water in an area. But it will behave exactly like normal water so if nothing is holding it in place, it will immediately spread out to the lowest parts of the area.
  22. Honestly the pop culture acceptance and even embracing of geek culture annoys me. It was our thing, our special thing we got to do and weren't bothered by anyone else. We had our own language, we had our own references. Now that Iron Man is cool, he's not... cool, if you know what I mean. Losing our niche makes it less special and now we get it cheapened by modern advertising etc.
  23. My brother was a big Chronopia fan, they had some great minis but I don't know if its even around any more
  24. Toth was amazing, its sad how little of his design and style ended up in Space Ghost because its such a killer concept.
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