unclevlad

The bill is here, or search for Florida SB 150 https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/150/BillText/c1/PDF Key points: --a GREAT deal of text about guardian programs in schools. Lots about the training involved. --anyone who is licensed to carry a firearm, or who passes the criteria to be licensed, is allowed to carry concealed. The criteria include passing a gun safety course...but the wording allows just a basic course to be sufficient. (that's down at line 667.) --there is no requirement for a background check before issuing a CC permit. --anyone may carry concealed into a church...but the church, it appears, can ban guns. (starts at line 834) --if you have a CC permit, there is no wait period for buying firearms BTW: the "shameful" refers to how the White House referred to the bill.

Proof positive of the maxim, "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should."

What CRT is pointing out is that the complete separation of PD and ED creates situations that are just a PITA. Champions Now threw out the split, so you could do this and it works *simply*. LW: AVAD is plausible, but no matter what, if you want it to do BODY, it's gonna be very expensive. And it doesn't address the issue, so much as side-step it. I'm not saying the split defenses don't have advantages too, but yeah, it does make "separate but distinct" standard-defenses damage packets useless. This really isn't an SFX argument, either, because the SFX that're being brought up are deliberately contrived to justify the mechanical spin forced by the rules. It is simply ridiculously impractical to say "2d6K (physical) + 4d6 vs. energy" so we don't. We define the mechanics then contrive the SFX so we go...yeah, ok, that sounds right.

Good hitting pitchers always stood out simply because they were such an aberration. Also, I'm not trying to nitpick here, but pitchers listed 2, 3, 4, 6, and 10 all played no later than 1933. The figure from the second article...huh, link's there but not the image. Oops. Anyway, in that period, pitchers hit *significantly* better...in the 20's, the average for all pitchers was over .200. Now...ok...the average for non-pitchers was almost .300. This covers the explosive years when the game went from dead ball to live ball, including Ruth's 60 HR season. The game changed, tho. I used the numbers in the sabr.org article above and built this quickly. The decade...that's the first year, so 0 is 1900-1910. The averages, I dropped the decimal point. 70-72 is separate as this is for the pre-DH period. Note the *serious* roll-off in the 60's and 70's...and, I suspect, we might see it more in the 40's and 50's if we split out the war vs. post-war years. Decade pitchers Non-pitchers P / N-P 0 181 261 0.69 10 180 263 0.68 20 204 293 0.70 30 193 287 0.67 40 177 268 0.66 50 169 267 0.63 60 143 257 0.56 70-72 147 257 0.57 I'll suggest it's because pitching became more specialized over time, at least in part. We certainly know that's the case now. It wouldn't be true in HS, but in those days, players would sign out of HS and most commonly go to the minors for several years. I'm thinking, the trend was, in the minors, they were pushed to pitching and away from the field, to a greater degree than in the very early decades. Another factor is probably here: https://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/picomg4.shtml Though the dead ball era, the leader in CGs was typically over 30. Slide forward to post-WWII, and even more dramatically, post-Korean War, and the numbers drop off substantially. Pitchers who throw lots of CGs get more at-bats...so their ability to hit becomes more significant. Even if relievers throw longer when they're used...their overall hitting doesn't really matter. Their ability to sacrifice? Yeah. So someone like Hampton or Zambrano *really* stand out relative to the pathetic hitting of the rest of the pitchers of their day. It's HARD!!! to compare different eras without contextual considerations like that.

Very, very rare. Especially with a pitcher, and not back then. Pitchers follow form in those days: they square to the ball, they pick the line (first or third), they try to get it on the ground and in play. This isn't the combo situation where a speedy #9 or lead-off guy might be making a 2-way bunt...some chance for a hit, but secondary fallback of a sacrifice. And remember how many times the pitcher was still told to try to sacrifice bunt with 2 strikes? They mess up the first 2 bunt attempts, but the manager STILL thinks he's got the better chance of the automatic strikeout if the 2-strike bunt attempt fails. Or even worse...a few pitchers were told to stand there and just take. Don't bother swinging. Pretty sure they were mostly relievers, cuz remember, this is before Baseball's Modern Wisdom and late-game relievers practically never doing more than 1 inning. A sacrifice doesn't even count as a plate appearance, for on base percentage.

Then stay with what's there. The limit of my suspension of disbelief is different from yours.

6E1 does give an example of a power visible to the radio group, but I think that's a poor idea. It feels too rare. By your argument, could someone define a power as perceivable to the Radio and Unusual groups? It would seem to be supported, but it's not balanced. For a free swap, I'd require it to be an equal swap...a standard sense group for a standard sense group OR, if you're picking up an unusual group like the radio group, then for the Sight group, it goes from Obvious to Inobvious...from not needing a PER roll to notice, to needing that PER roll, for example. It feels like you're getting too much if the radio (or mental) group is allowed for free.

You'll like this article, then. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/734326-the-20-most-comically-bad-hitting-pitchers-in-mlb-history Kaat was NOT a bad hitting pitcher. His lifetime average was .185...232 hits, 44 doubles, 16 home runs. There's a nice article about pitchers and their issues hitting here: https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-historical-evolution-of-the-designated-hitter-rule/ http://sabr.org/sites/default/files/Cronin-Figure1.png Kaat was well over average. (OTOH, Vida Blue was pretty miserable. His career average was .104.) I'm not arguing your basic point...good gosh, most of us here well recall the insipid flailing we saw from National League pitchers. Just your example. KILLER example? The greatest, best, most superlative pitcher ever...for a short span...was Sandy Koufax from 1962-1966. 111-34. ERA around 2.00. Over 1400 strikeouts. 176 starts...100 complete games. As a hitter? His slash line is .097/.141/.116. Yeah, his on base percentage is MUCH higher than his slugging percentage. 75 hits total, 9 doubles, 2 HRs. 43 walks.

There's a line in that story that's particularly significant to me...not to discount the rest, but this resonates: Their X is trans-activist...a negative-laden buzz term trying to shape perception. But it's not necessary. It could be removed. "An alternative to the medical paradigm" is a double-red hurricane flag for Lying, Manipulation, Fraud, and Disinformation Ahead! This has been the far right approach to anything that fits outside their worldview, over the last 10-ish years in particular.

https://thehill.com/business/3934301-new-cars-have-become-luxury-items/ I noticed this myself, altho in my case, some of this is, I'd really prefer my next car to be electric. Some of this is Rampaging Featuritis, as it's called in software. The perceived requirement to throw everything under the sun in. Collision avoidance systems aren't high end any more, I don't think. Connectivity options are still, I think, in non-basic trim packages...but they're more common. I'm not saying they're Bad Things...but they cost money. And I'm not even including features required by government regs, per se...that's a separate, albeit related, point. Another factor is, small cars just Don't Do Well in this country. There are some safety concerns, OK, but Americans love their big iron.

But there's diminishing returns at play. 15d6 Damage Negation would start at 75 points. A -6 limitation for Only for Falling Damage would still mean it costs 11. At some point, trying to assign a limitation value is futile. Granted: it might well be asserting that the approach is poor, but if you're going with a fiat declaration of the value of the limitation, at some point...define a new power that does what you want. You're completely making up a new power, in essence, anyway. 2 points. #1: being able to go into the heart of the sun is a trick that, as best I can recall, ONLY got pulled off by Silver Age Superman, when he was beyond ridiculously powerful. I read about solar physics from time to time. Temperatures in the millions of degrees. Material densities? Getting into the convective zone, IIRC, it's 150...8 times more dense than gold or tungsten. The energy output is simply not on a scale we can relate to. Space is easier, as we've shown that relatively simple equipment allows activity in space. #2: those are generally voluntary choices. Falling isn't. Falling is a risk one must consider...maybe not a common one, but it is a risk one may well encounter. Plus, terminal velocity falls are extreme. Serious damage occurs long before then, at least for normals. I don't have a problem with a super falling 20 stories not taking BODY damage...but he should feel it, unless he's a serious brick, or has some way to reduce it quite a bit. I think it's a mistake to treat the terminal velo fall as some sort of special case, and overall, falling damage isn't that unusual.

"Potentially" being a key word there. The granularity is poor, here; there just aren't that many options. Common is rPD or rED; Uncommon is the typical Flash Defs, or Mental or Power Def. Even in low-power/heroic games, most characters will have rPD. Almost all supers will have rPD and rED. Flash, Mental, or Power? As you move up in power, you'll probably see one of em reasonably often. I'll grant: I personally take LS: Heat and LS: Cold frequently...but also, rarely just one of em. They're 'hero' powers...you don't want your mighty hero shivering in 0 degree weather, right? So, yeah, if that's the mindset, then the rarity might change. You *can* also distinguish between "what do people have in general" versus "what do the heroes, villains, and minions (on either side) have?" Because taking out a normal or a minion is trivial. You may just consider 'rarity' as how often, and how much, do the full power PCs and NPCs have it? I'll also promote something I've been doing, which is graduating heat/cold resistance. I dislike full-out All or Nothing like LS: heat or cold...particularly when it's so ambiguous as to how far it goes. So I figured, OK, rework it. LS: Temperature. 1 point gives 2 TLs' worth of expansion of your personal comfort zone. It can be 1 TL heat, 1 TL cold, or 2 TLs of heat or cold resistance. To translate that into AVADs...they count as damage reduction. 1 level, 25%; 2 levels, 50%; 3 levels, 75%. LS: Heat/Cold is moved up to Uncommon, and if you apply NND to it, then even 1 level bounces it. Note that this is actually slightly MORE expensive, if you want to ignore SERIOUSLY cold weather like Antarctica or a Siberian winter. Going by 6E2 145, if you want 70 below zero F, that's 6 to 8 TLs, depending on how wide your TLs are. I really don't have that much of a problem with that, because that's REALLY cold. Most of us who've lived in cold country have seen a chart like this: and frostbite isn't END/REC loss...it's BODY damage. The rules are largely talking about hypothermia considerations, but at some point, there should be a transition into frostbite issues. And that probably should be a bit more expensive.

If you kill the velocity right before landing, there's no damage to be taken. KB is a byproduct, too. Generally, KB happens because the force vector, on impact, is parallel to the ground. There's nothing stopping you in that direction. Therefore: you get moved. In a fall, when you hit the ground, you do 30d6 to the ground...and the ground does 30d6 to you. The impact vector points straight up...but first things first, has to deal with the fact that you started with a velocity of 60m down, so that's far larger. The trick is that you've got to have your body aligned, so the push UP from the ground can be properly handled. Watch a gymnast's landing, from a vault, or from the high bar...sometimes floor exercise. They have to dissipate the force of landing. If they're a little off in their alignment...they move forward, take the step, and get a lower score for whatever they were doing. If they're REALLY out of alignment, Bad Things can happen.

My hope is that the extreme moves in multiple states start triggering a backlash. MAYBE, just maybe, this vote in Wisconsin is a sign of that. I can't put too much weight *yet* on the Trump candidates losing, as so many of them were terrible candidates. This is a rather more focused test case...but only one case.

If you as GM want to rewrite falling damage, be my guest. However, assuming mass comes into play is against the rules...because the converse doesn't hold. If you want to allow a lighter character to take less damage, then a heavier character should take more. OK, so now you're giving a free, hidden benefit to Shrinking, and a hidden cost to Growth or DI. Remember that the rules have to be PLAYED, they're not there to model reality...not that I agree with some of the assertions being made here today. Shrinking doesn't help, IMO, because the rapid deceleration causes massive displacement of body parts...which, if anything, is made WORSE by being small. Note that a normal with 10 BODY is NOT dead from 15d6 damage, by the rules. Just dying. They want a terminal velocity fall to be LETHAL if you can't offset some of it. Forget the roll, you are gonna be DEAD...unless you're a super with a lot of defense, or anyone with some means of counteracting things. Those don't change the base case. I can maybe see keeping the DC totals intact, but throwing in AP. So the max would be 24 d6, AP. But is it worth it? IMO, no. Keep it simple. Do you do AP for getting crushed by a rock avalanche? Not typically; AP is small and pointy, Penetrating tends to be massive, slow, and heavy. Another case: getting stomped by a Huge or Gigantic foot, which is an AoE attack...it's not AP. There's just no rationale to make it AP.

Then write it properly. LANGUAGE MATTERS. If it requires BOTH heat and cold, and that's common enough in your opinion to be viable for an NND, then, fine, so be it. If you write it up as heat OR cold, then all it takes is one. You're writing up the formal definition here, so you CANNOT use SFX arguments. You want the SFX to do X? Write it properly so the rules text...the power definition...matches. No, I never give SFX preference...or even influence...here. Note that you can also write it up as a compound power...2 1/2d6 NND (LS: heat) + 2 1/2 d6 NND (LS: cold), as Hugh said, or his more complex combination. Or 1 1/2d6 Heat, 1 1/2 d6 cold, and 2d6 either. Whatever. And that works in its own way.

NOOO....neither one makes any sense. Each Grab is a separate action. Multiple Attack allows multiple attack actions to take place, but each is separate. If I have Extra Limbs and Stretching, and I want to Multiple Attack to grab 2 targets, are you saying I'd only have to pay for STR once? If I want to punch one guy and grab one guy, it's 2 separate END costs. 2 Grabs, 2 separate actions, 2 END expenditures. Nor do you have to 'spread' your TK to hold onto multiple targets. The cleanest way to think of TK, as it's written up, is infinite extra limbs, with Stretching out to LOS, and its own independent STR measure.

A sniper most commonly is attacking from seriously long range. WIkipedia's got a long article on it; they talk about 800 meters as a useful definition. 800 meters is a range mod of about -13. You won't spot it, so invisible to sight would be unnecessary. A sniper would still want sound suppression, tho...snipers need to fade away, as a rule...but that might be done in various ways. The major point to an OAF, IPE gun is probably to use it in relatively crowded, or at least active/busy conditions, at short range. The goal would be that the target might understand...but the average bystander won't. That said, you really are pushing into Inobvious territory, IMO. "Obvious" not only means "readily perceivable"...it's also "readily recognizable." But that might mean IPE to sound only...a silenced weapon...would fit. Go to the IPE advantage, 6E1 328: So OAF (10 mm handgun), IPE (Sound, Obvious -> Inobvious); OAF (real gun) For purposes of OP's question: if the target can see the gun, he gets his DCV. That's driven by Obvious. What he probably *can't* do is reliably count shots to know when the clip's empty, and those who can't see the gun (hit man in shadow, say) won't be able to hear it. Also, if the target isn't aware of the shooter, he doesn't get alerted to the sound. Basically, you split the perceivability into its different aspects.

Bob Costas dropped a nugget...Yanks-Phillies, so it's a Yankee nugget, sort of. 50 years ago this week, a Yankee became the first player to be the designated hitter. I honestly forgot it was that long ago...of course, by the same token, I can also pretty much say, I can't recall a time when the AL *didn't* have it. Yeah, OK, I was old enough...but the only baseball I followed was Dodger radio broadcasts.

It gets worse. Not just committee assignments. https://wpln.org/post/republicans-bar-three-democrats-from-committees-following-their-gun-control-protest-on-tennessee-house-floor/ If the Republicans oust them, I have to think this'll go to the state Supreme Court, because this feels utterly unjustified. It shows, tho, that at least here, at least some of the Republicans don't care about democracy.

.....is there a better group to hang with?

Nonononono.....the trifecta of cobble is apples, cinnamon, and a streusel-nut topping. (Along with a bit of lemon juice and sugar.) .............altho mixed berries can make for a lovely replacement for the apples. And a touch of five spice along with the cinnamon.......

UConn builds a big first half lead, withstands a rugged run by SDSU who can't get closer than 8, then stretches it out at the end. 76-59. An amusing aspect, in the ESPN brackets...it came down to the tie breaker. The best bracket before the final had SDSU; had they won, it was gonna be the champ. There were 2 UConn brackets that were the best score there, so it was gonna be the tiebreaker...final score. One had it 79-71, the other 78-56. So an 8 point spread for one, 22 for the other. If SDSU had hit a 2 at the end...it would've been 15, to split the difference. Mind, that part of things means nothing...there's no prize, just bragging rights. Anyone who picked UConn got an entry into a prize drawing, but that's several thousand people. 5th title in less than 25 years. More than anyone else in that time frame.

ESPN scoreboard MLB.com scoreboard everyone runs score crawls, so you've been catching them for the most part And, yes, I'm supremely lazy at times........

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=555017716188991&set=a.251561316534634