unclevlad

"Be careful what you wish for. You might get it."

So it's like this with you....? I'm pickin' up good vibrations She's giving me excitations (oom bop bop) I'm pickin' up good vibrations (good vibrations, oom bop bop) She's giving me excitations (excitations, oom bop bop) Good, good, good, good vibrations (oom bop bop)

Well, if one is realistic, it means you have until the second half kickoff of week 1......................... <walks away whistling.....>

Well, sure, but buy the gasoline and flares now, before supplies run out when the purchasing rush starts. Prior planning prevents poor performance. --Margaret Hoolihan Elsewhere, we get to see the degree to which the NFL owners can fast track the formalities of a franchise sale. The Snyders made the announcement that the agreement had been finalized, so now it goes to the finance committee, then the owners. Given just how much everyone wants Snyder booted to the curb, I expect it'd take a pretty massive set of red flags to block this one. Interesting point just now on PTI, about Brady. "It's what these mega athletes do." Wilbon gave a list of em, with shares in various teams. Rather a long one. Makes sense, too, as, if they're smart, those guys are insanely cash-flush.

I'd offer a snide remark about what that says about your feelings for that team in the Swamp...but...it just can't be done. They're still a dump truck. We all know power rankings right now are nothing but giggle fodder, but...it's still time for giggling. So: https://sportsnaut.com/nfl-power-rankings-all-32-teams-updated-weekly/ Packers in Denver...the early reviews put em adjacent. At the Bears, they're #29. At the Texans, who are #27. And hey, ANY team should be able to take 1 of 2 from the Derps.

Yep. Jayson Tatum was a disaster for 3+ quarters for the Green Meanies, but nailed 16 in the 4th as the Sixers offense evaporated. The Nuggets were up 27-26 with 3 minutes left in the 1st...then *annihilated* the Suns. 81-51 at half. Suns never got closer than 21 until garbage time...it's 22 right now, coming down to 4 minutes left. Jokic is still in...but not for long. He just got his 10th rebound...giving him another triple double, the 3rd this series. It's curious: The box score on ESPN is about 30 seconds ahead of the broadcast. That's a pretty big delay. Now we'll have to see what happens with the Suns, what with a new owner. Adding Durant, but the defense was slipshod. Denver's only gonna finish with ~ 125, which isn't bad, but 81 in the first half darn sure is. Ball handling was a problem, and Denver feasted on easy points of turnovers, so Chris Paul was missed in that regard, but Cam Payne's shooting was keeping the Suns alive...for the period they were. Booker, Ayton, Paul, and Durant are all under contract for 2 more years...but they're also pulling down $146M combined for next season. The luxury tax threshold is expected to be around $162M. That may well change, but they're pretty darn close to it with just those 4. Shamet and Cam Payne eat all of that up...and you've still got to fund 9 players. They had the 6th highest payroll this season; each of the 4 big contracts jumps about $2M.

That's ONLY true if the MP is filled with 180 point slots...which is something the VPP could not have. The control cost is the bound there for individual powers, so you can't have anything more than 90 in any one power, as you wrote it. 180 MP? I'll set up 180 real that can be used simultaneously...they may not all make sense on one character, but we could work something out. 14d6 Blast, 1/2 END (87 active), No KB, Limited Range, 58 real Resistant Protection, 10 PD, 10 ED, 10 Mental, 10 Power, allocatable (75 active), Nonpersistent, 60 real +3 OCV, +3 DCV, +3 SPD (60 active), nonpersistent, 48 real Clinging, 10 points 176 real, 232 active, and nothing more than 90 active. Also note, I haven't tossed in a big one like Skill Roll. I've done a super-abusive VPP that was, IIRC, 210 pool size, 70 control cost...WITH RSR as a required modifier. It came out close to 350 active. A lot of it was that the baseline character had mostly human-level physical characteristics...until they got bumped, and that was in the VPP. I also posted the 130 pool / 30 control...that one has about 210 active at one time, IIRC. The major difference is, the one I posted has the concept that everything is No Range, the bigger one is a blaster. I could rebuild either of those in a 130 point MP...but the slot costs would be higher than the control cost. That's a pretty direct consequence of doing a VPP with a TINY control cost. But the issue here isn't the frameworks that much, it's the limitations first. Consider: 12d6 Blast, 1/2 END 15/15 Resistant Protection Flight, 26m, Position Shift, 1/2 END 75, 45, and 39 active. Now toss on OIAID, with Limited Range for the Blast, nonpersistent for the defense, and Restrainable for the Flight, so everything gets -1/2. 50, 30, 26. The only thing really arguable would be the Blast...if you strictly adhere to 60 active, it's too high, but if it's 12 DCs, it's fine. And I've shaved 53 character points off. No framework involved.

If there was to be a civics exam to be eligible to vote...what kind of requirement should be in place to be eligible to run for Congress?

Oh yeah. Definitely Marvin. Except I'd have tossed in a black obelisk into the imagery, just to REALLY mess with peoples' heads.

Remember that there's 20 MNF games, and that Fox and CBS won't like losing too many popular-team games...Chiefs, Pats, Steelers, Niners, Cowboys...divisional rivalry games like Eagles-Giants, or playoff matchups from last season...to MNF and TNF...and the international games, which grabbed the Chiefs, Pats, and Bills once already. Building the full NFL schedule now is likely VERY complicated because there are SO MANY stakeholders to try to keep happy.

Yeah, I gotta go with PG here. The gross misstatement in the headline is unforgivable. Article in Politico says even his staff thinks it's a terrible idea, so my feeling is, it's largely trolling the voters, just trying to get some buzz. No such thing as bad publicity, right? It's gotten him attention.

Uhhhhh...... No. Sorry, Grail, but that's not even close to correct with the VPP. A VPP has 2 starting numbers: pool size and control cost. Pool size is the maximum number of real points that can be kept selected and ready in the pool at any one time. Control cost is the active point limit. For an MP, it's better to think of it as pool size ONLY, while imposing an additional condition on the powers that can be included in the framework. A 90 size/90 control VPP starts at 135 character points because the control cost (in CP) is 1 per 2 points. It is important to remember tho: they are NOT coupled in 6E, as they were in 5E. You can have a pool size of 80 with a control cost of 50...10d6 Blast with Limited Range (40 points), 14 hardened rPD with Nonpersistent (21), and 6d6 physical Damage Negation, STUN Only, nonpersistent (17). 78 real points for the 3 combined. I can also do a pool size 41, control cost 62...the intent being 10d6 Blast at 1/2 END, or 12d6 Blast at full END, where maybe I've got one targeting PD, another ED. And Flash attacks built the same. Fine...everything must have -1/2 in limitations. But they don't have to be the SAME limitations, as they would have to be in an MP. But this is only a problem when you're planning a framework where you'll use one full-sized power at a time. The major difference between a VPP and an MP, for costing, is that the MP doesn't have a pre-defined control cost; the slot costs replace the character points spent on the control cost in the VPP. EVERYTHING you can do in a VPP to reduce active costs, you can do in an MP...and it's very easy to do if you treat the MP as purely pool size, where the max points in a slot is always going to be smaller. Also note that if your VPP requires a Power skill roll, the total cost TO YOU must include the cost of the Power Skill. It's also important to remember that the VPP can't be changed in combat without sharp increases to the control cost. Large cosmic power pools force a MASSIVE expenditure on the control cost...if the basis is 75 points (12d6 blast, 1/2 END), then +2 takes the control cost from 37 character points, to 111. That's a huge expenditure. The VPP does support one particular abuse, as I mentioned: RSR. GMs aren't likely to balk when your Power skill roll, to manipulate your pool in combat, is pretty high like 15-, even manipulating max points at a time. Some might balk at 17-...that's something to discuss in advance. The rules allow the power skill to be used to activate your powers too...and by definition, none of these can be any higher. OK...you can buy a Power skill for an MP, as a common modifier, and scale it similarly...but in the VPP, the cost of the Power skill is already covered by NOT having to put No Skill Roll onto the VPP control cost. What the VPP absolutely requires, that the MP doesn't, is a thorough discussion of what can, and can't, be done.

Not surprised that ESPN pushes for a few more games. The Black Friday game isn't even slightly surprising, and it'll be a day where Amazon blasts out a ton of promo stuff, I'm sure. And note that none of the Thanksgiving games are TNF...they're Fox, CBS, and NBC. So Amazon wants a game that week for their billions. I wonder if any of the Monday doubleheaders will be during the flex part for MNF, weeks 12-17. If so, well, could be more cases of fans irate because their game attendance plans get tossed at a whim. But hey, we all know the NFL doesn't care about fans in seats, it figures they're replaceable.

Is inspirobot's real name, perhaps, Marvin?

The Trop's rather old and dated now, so...that's not terribly surprising, they might get rid of it. VERY central location with expansive grounds, going back to its early days. But it's 60+ years old now, and Vegas doesn't treat its elders with respect. I'd also be a bit worried about the complexities underpinning this. The buildings are owned by Bally's, and they're not great, now...Bally's only paid $150M. But the land is owned by a separate group. This kinda feels like an internal squabble just waiting to happen, with the A's stuck in the middle...again. But I suppose there's no such thing as a 'simple' billion-dollar deal. Face masks and college softball...they're optional. I don't watch much softball, but when I do catch it...yeah, pitchers and hitters often have em, and apparently corner infielders at times too. Can't recall about college baseball...hm. The playoff selection show is the 28th, with the regionals the first weekend in June. That puts the conference championships starting in less than 2 weeks, most likely. ESPN's tended to show the ACC and SEC tournaments, at least some of the games, and they're during the day. Probably catch some of em, and may try to watch. Certainly, I don't recall many players wearing any optional protection....

Ehhhh....I really dislike time travel, and multiple timelines isn't a favorite either. Going animated makes sense for this. Probably a good idea connect to the original fans with the original cast, as best one can...and they'd all be obviously MUCH older. If you wanna play with timelines...makeup is less flexible. Claudia Christian returning...hey, that fight was over 20 years ago.

Nope. If they want a 180 point MP, they sank 180 points into it. There is no problem there...so long as an eye is kept on the active points, and more likely simply the damage DCs, in any slot. Recognized something earlier today. It doesn't matter that much, how many active points are on a sheet. What matters much more, is how many active points you can use at any one time. That should be a much stronger predictor of a character's power/balance. The biggest abuses here are: --limitations on a very large number of points...focus (especially, say, OIF), OIAID, Linked, RSR, Always On, and potentially Unified Power. --Multiform, sometimes --ECs,,,because all the powers are available all the time, but you're still getting a significant cost savings. --Duplication and Summon, in many cases....but they're clear STOP SIGN powers, so this should be recognized implicitly.

And now the list of charges is out. Rather extensive, too. From NYT:

Wellllll, drat. I forgot all about it again. Westminster Dog Show concluded tonight. I like to watch 3 primary groups, when I remember...the hounds Monday, and the Sporting and Working groups tonight. Oops. The dog that won best in show was a whiskered petit basset griffon Vendéen but the use name made up for that mouthful....Buddy Holly.

Yeah, I figured that. I'll rephrase: I don't think that many high-level soccer players come from that part of the world, to end up going back there very much. I will admit I could be completely wrong with that. Another aspect is simply the duration of potential exposure. He wasn't in the region for all that long, and ya gotta figure the risk of exposure per day, likely isn't very high.

So base STR is 15 points per???? Because it affects skill rolls...that STR doesn't even have. There are no default STR skills. What about DEX or INT, which are skills-heavy? What about END costs, how do those change? And if STR is 15 points per, then what's HA? What's Blast? What's a martial arts DC? Defenses. Special purpose powers like Invis. None of these have any connection to skills. Worse, what's the cost of, say, Counterstrike, which has +2 OCV, +2 DCV? You have to work through the entire system to see what indirect balance effects you're creating. I guarantee you'll screw it up. No question. I promise I would too; it's too complex a problem NOT to mess it up. And man...in the standard base cost with advantages and limitations...you're making the math that much harder because the numbers are suddenly MUCH bigger. Many people don't LIKE doing that much math; they have a hard enough time with the scales in RAW, much less suddenly blowing things up to 7500 points...a 500 point character. And as LW says...for what? Even you're killing the granularity of the system you propose by just rescaling everything to fit. Scott: I think the abbreviations are mostly standard...just not English standard. Spanish, I presume? Try something different. 2 ideas: 1. skill rolls --> 7 + V / 3 rather than V / 5. 2. skill rolls --> 9 + V / 3, or maybe 10 + V / 3....but on 3d8. Skill costs don't need to change, and you're not changing combat calculations that much either. The key there would be the change in the probability to hit given the delta between the attacker's OCV and defender's DCV. It would change things but it wouldn't be that radical. OR, alternately, roll skills and perceptions on 3d8 but leave the combat rolls alone.

My take is different. A prototypical use case for an MP is the blaster's MP...blasts, flashes, RKAs. Target different defenses, maybe toss in special-use goodies like AoE or Autofire. Maybe include a Red Pen attack, to use when a full-damage attack may be too lethal. Other than the Red Pen, where you don't care about the point savings, the costs will likely all be the same, or close, based on the DCs of the attack. Limitations need to be common to help reduce costs, like Limited Range does. So the MP cost itself, for this style, isn't saving any points. It's the active cost, less only common limitations. And you still pay the slots. These do add flexibility, but also cost. Saying you're getting freebies is a mischaracterization. This isn't D&D, where every wizard and sorcerer spell has one narrow effect only. Supers often demonstrate more flexibility than this. If you're doing multiple MPs, you're probably doing it wrong...altho, to be fair, it can also result in a cleaner looking character sheet. Yeah, we had a loud, sometimes ugly debate...but you can have a 150 point MP regardless of any active point cap because the MP is a FRAMEWORK. The restriction is that you can only have 60 active in any slot, which is a campaign principle and not worth any sort of limitation, and the MP size is just the pool size here. NOW, you can take limitations specific to individual powers, for the cost reduction, to change how powers fit into your pool. So, perhaps when you're using your Flight, you can only use your Red Pen, Reduced by Range Blast...because that's how things fit together. By design. OK, so you have a VPP with a pool size of 60, and control cost of 60? Are you paying for No Skill Roll? That's another 30. If not, you're buying a Power Skill roll that's gonna probably be at least 20. Changing in combat is required to even try to reach equivalence. That's another 15. You're getting no limited powers limitation, so your 60 points of effectiveness costs anything from 125 to 150 points. Sure, you can do more things, but you've spent 125 to get 60 points at a time. That's Christopher's point. You're getting a lot, but you're PAYING a lot. Your argument doesn't hold up to detailed inspection, IMO. Or, let's put it another way. 500 points. You have your VPP giving you 60 active points for whatever you want to do...but leaving only 375 for the rest. I have all 500. We otherwise agree to similar strategies, power builds and costs, and acceptable limitations...so we're not trying to metagame our limitations any differently. You effectively have a bunch of 435 point "multiforms." I have a single, 500 point type. Which wins? The issue with an EC is, this is NOT the case. A classic EC might be Blast, Force Field, Flight. Let's get definite: --9d6 Blast (45) --15 PD, 15 ED FF, 0 END, still legal in the EC (45) --Flight, 12", x4 NC + Position Shift (handy) or x8 NC, 1/2 END. Base cost 34, active cost 42. That's a 21 point EC, giving you 132 active points all usable together, for 21 (EC) + 24 + 24 + 21 = 90 points. That IS 42 free points. Yes, I can play games with VPPs and give myself much more than this. If I have RSR on all powers in the VPP, I can define my pool size to be 2x my control cost...and with the RSR, I'm getting 3x the control cost in active points usable at once. And there's this *extreme* form, NOT that this'd pass GM muster for game use: Variable Power Pool (Magic Pool), 130 base + 30 control cost, Powers Can Be Changed As A Half-Phase Action (+1/2) (152 Active Points); Hard Skill Roll (-1/2); all slots Requires A Roll (Skill roll, -1 per 5 Active Points modifier; -1) 1) Persistent Powers: Real Cost: 0 - END=0 2) Resistant Protection (6 PD/6 ED), Hardened (+1/4), Impenetrable (+1/4) Nonpersistent (-1/4) Real Cost: 12 3) Damage Negation (-3 DCs Physical, -3 DCs Energy) Nonpersistent (-1/4) Real Cost: 13 4) Energy Damage Reduction, Resistant, 50% Nonpersistent (-1/4) Real Cost: 13 5) Physical Damage Reduction, Resistant, 50% Nonpersistent (-1/4) Real Cost: 13 6) Boosted Reflexes I: (Total: 29 Active Cost, 13 Real Cost) +2 SPD Nonpersistent (-1/4) plus Lightning Reflexes (+9 DEX to act first with All Actions) 7) Boosted Reflexes II: (Total: 30 Active Cost, 14 Real Cost) +3 OCV, +3 DCV, Nonpersistent (-1/4) 8- Go the distance: (Total: 30 Active Cost, 13 Real Cost) +15 STR plus +10 REC Nonpersistent plus +25 END Nonpersistent 9) Stretching 12m, Does Not Cross Intervening Space (+1/4), IPE (Inobvious to Sight; +1/4), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) ; Only To Cause Damage, no Noncombat Stretching Real Cost: 8 10) Attacks...pick 1: 11) TK (12 STR), Fine Manipulation (28 Active Points) Real Cost: 14 - END=3 12) HA +6d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (30 Active Points) Real Cost: 15 - END=1 13) HA +3d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), AVAD (Power Def, LS (Cold) [NND]; +1) (27 Active Points) Real Cost: 13 - END=1 14) HA +2d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), AVAD (Power Def, LS (Cold) [NND]; +1), Does BODY (+1) (26 Active Points) Real Cost: 13 - END=1 15) Movement, pick 1: Real Cost: 0 - END=0 16) Teleportation 24m, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (30 Active Points) Real Cost: 15 17) Teleportation 9m, Safe Blind Teleport (+1/4), NRM , MegaScale (1m = 100 km) (29 Active Points) Real Cost: 14 18) Miscellaneous: 2 slots, 30 points each (Invis, shape shift, that sort of thing) The issue here *isn't* the VPP. I could do a LOT of the same by simply picking a prime configuration...MAYBE with a 30 point MP for the TK, HAs and Teleports...but keeping the honkin huge -1 limitation on practically everything. Certainly everything that's got Nonpersistent on it. But again...that is not true with an EC. The EC alone gives you savings...and you can play abusive limitations games on top of that, if you like. Say you want OIAID as a common modifier on the EC I built. OK, the base EC cost --> 17. The powers go to 19, 19, and 17. 90 points --> 72. Another 18. It's not as dramatic, but we're also not applying it to nearly as many points...and there's already been a huge honkin' reduction in cost because of the EC. That's the basic difference. The reason why it might be OK, tho, in those earlier editions, as I noted, is that ANY powers-based character is at a significant disadvantage compared to a more characteristics-heavy character.

How many higher-level international players end up in matches in sub-Saharan Africa? Not to say malaria isn't a massive problem...QUITE!!!!! the opposite. https://www.who.int/teams/global-malaria-programme/reports/world-malaria-report-2021 It's simply that we tend to be First Worlders, and malaria's much more of Third World Problem. We're pretty good at forgetting about those, unless they're particularly dramatic, like ebola.

1. The gentleman in question never earned the right to that honorific. He did get an LL.D late in his life, but that's styled differently. 2. Unfortunately, the act of looking directly at the sun does not preclude the act of...contributing...to the gene pool. Unfortunate, but not that surprising. Fish farmed from rivers in Vietnam have frequently received red ratings from Seafood Watch, due to high levels of pollutants in the waters in which they're raised. That doesn't bode well for any wild species that share the habitat.

Ohmygosh.......ohh this one is UGLY. There's video that kicks off immediately...and the key moment is right up front. https://www.mlb.com/news/ryan-yarbrough-leaves-start-after-being-hit-by-line-drive The video shows he takes it squarely right in the face. It rebounds SO HARD that the ball returns almost all the way to the catcher so fast that he throws the batter out by 10-15 feet. That was Sunday; today, the KC manager had this: VERY fortunate. 3 non-displaced fractures around the eye; I suspect there's some vision problems as well, and that he'll be monitored for concussion symptoms. But it could've been so, so much worse.