Christopher R Taylor

I agree, but I don't think that's a bad thing, so much. I think writers got a bit carried away with "its a comic!" and "superpowers, whee!" because they often weren't taking the work very seriously. The first guy that said "Superman flies so fast he goes back in time" wasn't thinking about a long-term permanent thing for the character or some established universe. He just had a story to tell and went "what if??"

If you don't want people using drain and dispel to shatter things, then just deal damage to it directly like normal. However, I would think that taking 'real weapon' on an item would make it more, not less vulnerable to breaking attacks and effects.

Or every point you hit by you can raise the minimum by one; so instead of a 1 its a 2, but it doesn't increase the maximum damage. Still I share eepjr24's concern, however that's pronounced. Its giving high OCV more damage without any kind of defensive offset other than buying up DCV. There is precedent for rolling well meaning a better hit in Hero, but its not very pronounced, and while conceptually this appeals to me, its not something I'd want to actually put in a game.

That's how I did it: areas that are holy or unholy are change environment. I slipped in a few minor effects like +1 to magic skill roll for necromancy in unholy areas, but that's not necessary.

Firstly, I think a GM who makes certain powers or power combinations off limits to non-mages is going to have some frustrated players, especially the more creative ones. Well, the premise is "how to make them seem different" and the proposed solution is "make superpowers have to make scientific sense, and magic not" which leads to "some stuff either one can and cannot do." Magic only seems and feels magical when its inexplicable and surprising, when it does things you can't and don't expect. If a mage pulls a gun out and shoot someone, it doesn't matter if the bullets are made of demon bones and summoned in the chamber rather than using a magazine. It just doesn't seem magical.

Just buy Dispel Body, and it works fine. Inanimate objects have no recovery, so they stay drained or dispelled, and Body is the target to make things break or die. That's why magical substances in my world tend to have power defense. Drain has a continual effect, it just stacks each hit. Dispel is all or nothing (unless you buy cumulative, see Hyper-Man's post above). So you can get different effects. Dispel might seem cheaper, but it has an absolute top end it can affect, while Drain can go forever, so it depends what you're trying to simulate.

Sif might be in there, she's not a huge name for some reason and never really caught on. I have always liked her in all her appearances.

Seems to me the first thing to do is to not try to explain or systematize it. Don't apply science to the magic stuff. How does it work? Who gives a damn, its magic. Focus on the hard science for superpowers, so it has to make sense. Ignore all that for the magic, its crazy and magic and it doesn't make any sense. Magic should be able to do things superpowers cannot, like warp time and space, summon things, create stuff out of nothing, etc. Avoid simple energy constructs and have the magic be stuff. Instead of an energy force field, its a shield made of shards of mirrors. Instead of an energy blast, a dragon's head shows up and blasts fire all over the target.

I'm kind of buried right now with work but some time I plan to get back to this project again. If anyone else wants to do conversions and put them here, that would be great, too

Karl Urban and Chris Hemsworth in one film together? They're going to need people to carry fainted women out of the theater

I may watch it on Netflix or cable. That's where I regrettably saw Man of Steel

It could be editing issues, but I haven't seen B vs S to decide, I was just going based on Man of Steel. Which sucked, but was pretty well written as a sci fi story about a marauding group of aliens on a planet.

It would only let you know if you were within 200m of the car. Clairsentience has a maximum range you can place the sensing point at from yourself.

Unfortunately with both Car Sense (per GM fiat) or Clairsentience with a lot of range ... you're talking a LOT of active points for a power that doesn't really do all that much. The active point cost is simply too high to justify the expense This is the main problem, the clair build is like 192 active points to tell if someone touches a car globally (the earth is about 40,075,000 meters across, so that's about 18 doublings of range, plus 0 END and persistent) That's ridiculous, to put it mildly. As a GM for such a minor and insignificant power, I'd lean more toward the susceptibility build massey suggested, or some kind of Danger Sense alternate. Its just not worth more than 5 points to know something like that. Its like Shadowjack's power in the Roger Zelazny book. If anyone says his name in shadows, he can hear it. How much should that cost? Not much. In fact it might be really annoying and worth points.

Waid's run on Justice League was superb, I could see him handle it very well. Plus, with his side projects, he's gotten his grim and angry Superman type out of his system.

No, because of the definition of the power and how it works. Changing the color of an item is cosmetic, by definition, according to the rules: Changing the function of the item is minor or greater, according to the rules. Its pretty straightforward here. This isn't about the complication, its about the degree of change to the target. That's how transform works. Its like how Teleport moves objects and Change Environment doesn't build Barriers.

The problem with these movies isn't the writing, that's pretty solid. Its the almost complete lack of understanding of the characters. If you cannot grasp that Superman is supposed to be noble, uplifting, heroic, and inspiring, you shouldn't be anywhere near writing a Superman movie. I you cannot comprehend that Batman has only one rule -- do not kill -- you shouldn't be writing Batman movies. Its like doing a James Bond movie and having him work for the Russians and afraid of both violence and women. Its like doing Hamlet, but nobody dies and Hamlet is a monk that chants prayers all day. The very minimum you should do as a writer is be faithful to the characters.

She messes with people's minds more than just reading them. She apparently can become invisible and teleport as well (or its just lousy writing in Avengers 2 with her showing up behind everyone unnoticed).

I would say its not cosmetic because it is changing the item beyond its normal range of simple appearance and sensory alterations. Turning your sword blue: cosmetic. Making your sword do extra damage to creatures vulnerable to a kind of attack: minor.

Yeah I think I'd go with change environment, for this one

They will, though. If they are bloody or damaged. They take bites out of each other when swarming, too. The real answer is: because if they ate each other instead of stupidly stumbling after humans, then it wouldn't be scary.

Gotta be measured in milligrams, I'd think

That's the problem. His version of superheroes is the same dreary, grimdark, miserable, angsty, goth vision they're already suffering under. Not really heroes so much as guys with lots of power that fight each other causing vast property damage. If Warner/DC want to address the concerns fans have and box office receipts are reflecting, they need someone with a different vision. Angry, frightening, emo Superman is not what fans want.

None of the sample characters have mental powers, for those reasons and several others (such as only one in the Avengers did, and she's just... undesignable, because she has wish powers).

I'm concerned that Johns is a main part of the problem, though. So not a terribly great solution.