unclevlad

They're clumsy and transparent TO YOU. They're still Gospel Truth to far too many. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/03/14/republicans-increasingly-realize-theres-no-evidence-of-election-fraud-but-most-still-think-2020-election-was-stolen-anyway-poll-finds/?sh=6f6dbf9c28ec So about 1/3 of responding Republicans still believed the election lies. I can't accept a "most gullible brainwashed cultist" label on a group THIS large. That's 10s of million of people.

What I think the rules DON'T make clear is that many Constant powers do NOT cost END every phase. Some do: Shrinking, Growth, DI to name a couple. But Flight, Running, and Stretching are examples that don't. Your 40 STR tough guy doesn't spend 4 END every phase of his life; he spends it when that STR is in use. TK is STR usable at range. It shouldn't require END every phase, and shouldn't require you to turn it on and off in most cases. There are at least 2 missing categories for Duration. This is showing one of them. We could call STR, TK, etc. as Sustainable...not Constant. Their normal uses are often intermittent, not continuous, but they do have both. Shrinking, DI, and Growth are generally continuously operating; on the flip side, things like Teleport and Leaping can be used in something *like* a continuous mode, but it's just repeated instantaneous uses. The other missing Duration...I'll nominate Lingering. Entangles and Mental Illusions/Mind Control would be the exemplars. They're "instant"...but with ongoing effects that don't have a prescribed duration, like a Drain has. 6E1 actually uses "Instant continuing-effect Mental Power" in terms of Dispel...the default being, they can't be, but APG offers up a limitation that says they can be dispelled. But it would be preferable, IMO, to define the durations more sensibly.

The value of negation relative to other defenses is a PITA. Negation works against AVADs, Drain STUN, and Drain BODY. Which opens up a massive rules question: if I have, say, 5 DCs physical and 5 DCs energy negation, with no limitations, then what's my defense against --AVAD Power Def? --AVAD Mental Def? --AVAD Flash Def? --NND LS: Cold? Is it really applying to ALL of them? If I buy it as STUN Only, does it still apply? What about BODY only? That's a poor choice, but still allowed. Or, is it AVAD vs. Resistant PD only? That seems to contradict the "apply the DN to an AVAD even if the char lacks the specified defense." DR has the same language. Its 2 principle issues are overly high cost, and horrific structure. DR applies LAST...so if you've got, say, 12 total DEF and 50% DR, against even 12d6...you're taking 15, and those 30 points of defense are only buying you 15, on average. Up the basic defenses, reduce the effectiveness of the DR. DR can be viable...but with pretty specific builds, and even then it's likely to be a somewhat profligate approach. The core issue with DR is, the cost did not change between 5E and 6E. In 5E, the point of DR was insurance against a bad KA STUN roll. There's some risk of that in 6E, but it's much less likely. 5E's DR also says it applies to an NND or AVLD even lacking the specified defense...so the only compensation 6E added was to have it apply to Drain BODY and Drain STUN. Not even close to equivalent, IMO. Me? In a game where the villains are dangerous, and MAY well kill? Being stunned means you are at EXTREME risk. It's a VERY, VERY bad idea when the guy that just knocked you out, will take advantage. I'd say even 10% chance of a single roll stunning you is too high. The point of the brick is to either occupy the enemy's brick...or, to try to force as many opponents to attack *him* as possible, drawing the brunt of the action. The brick's the damage sponge...you can hit him over and over and over, and he's not going down. With many of the other types...a point to remember is that the source material is NOT quantitative, it's narrative. There's no points...so a Magic VPP can have No Skill Roll and Zero Phase, while supporting a good attack power, defense power(s), and something for movement...all at once. Try that in Hero, and your eyes bug out at the cost. It's narrative, so either the mentalist is fairly safe and out of the way (possible) or for some reason the villains choose not to attack...or they just miss all the time. Spidey's another example. Spidey has VERY little resistant defense and generally low defense. His schtick is dodging...tipped off by Spidey Sense, too...and possibly, the ability to roll with the punch, as a form of damage reduction. You need to give Spidey a DCV about 6 above the villains' OCVs...which is viable for a grunt, but gets to be debatable for named villains. So what do they get? Narrative protection. The writer says the attacks miss. In a game? We can't do that. As a secondary point...the source material uses flowing time. We don't. We have segmented time. It's understandable, but the bad guys WILL have their opportunities. Now, to be sure: glass cannons are a pretty common problem. The D&D mage, especially prior to 3E, was probably the best exemplar. (At least in 3E, mages can try to get enough Con to help out.) So...for me, I really want to avoid getting stunned, and I don't want to get KOd by too few hits. So my blasters and mentalists and martial artists DO have decent defenses. Not as much as the tough guys, but respectable. YMMV.

I dunno, I hear he's got a big new fundraising campaign going...altho it's too early to know how well it's doing. But if it's anything like his prior ones? Looks pretty smooth to me...............

That's because you're buying things badly. In a 12 DC game, DR may not work out, no. Or it might, if done with proper consideration to an overall defense plan. Nor is 5 DEF and 8 DC Negation necessarily smart; it's too much Negation. Negation is for reducing STUN first. Oh, and players who think, buy some of the Negation as STUN Only. But a couple BODY getting through occasionally isn't "bloody Iron Age." It's not Silver Age supers, either, where no one ever takes BODY. I WANT the risk. Yes, I want the character build to risk taking some BODY. I also target the overall defense build to the damage. If I've gotta worry about 15 DCs, then 5 DEF and 8 Negation is stupid. Heck, in a 12 DC where 4d killing is on the table, then 5 rDEF and 8 Negation is dangerous. I don't think "oh it's all one thing or another." I'll mix and match MUCH more. My patterns are oriented to urban fantasy/modern supers fiction...where heroes MAY WELL get hurt, and death IS an occupational risk.

Can't do that with the prosecutor, probably, but hey, for the judge, just appoint them.

That was the sound of Bronco fans cheering as they make the playoffs this year.

No, but they can make the process extremely onerous, by issuing tons of subpoenas of their own, and attempt to poison the prosecution in the court of public opinion. Congress has the right of oversight. If they elect to abuse? They'll be wanting to look at EVERYTHING. And with the people we're talking about, we know they'll abuse their power in every way they can.

And the House Republicans are promising to be as antagonistic to the prosecution of this case as they can be, using terms you'd expect. It's gonna be an ugly political summer, looks like.

The Twins are 31-32...and in first place in the AL Central, by 2 games. The Red Sox are 31-31...and in last place in the AL East. The Mariners are 30-31...and in last place among major league clubs in the AL West. (The A's don't count.)

I see nothing to be sad about there....

Either that, or a barista's nightmare....

Ohh dear....the fact that they're going to this much effort implies they have good reason to go to that effort. Makes me undecided about whether I hope they find something...or nothing..... Elsewhere...the world of watch collecting is in a bit of a tizzy. https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/omega-auction-fake-speedmaster-1234852416/ I was watching this auction...not *bidding*, mind, I don't play in this league. There were several, tho, where I was interested to see what they'd go for. This one...the bidding just went bugnuts crazy. SERIOUSLY crazy. Not only did it set the record price...it was, IIRC 6x the previous record. And now we find...it's a fake. Not only that, but the fake was perpetrated by, or at least abetted by, Omega employees. This is going to have an impact...

2nd women's semifinal at Roland Garros about to start. The tournament asks the crowd to observe a moment of silence for an attack...wha...whoa.... https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/europe/annecy-france-stabbing-attack-intl/index.html Sick. Just....sick.

Wow. Talk about having no career expectancy... Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be running backs... From ESPN: So they're saying on the downhill side of his career at 28 and after only 6 seasons? Wow. Basically the same move the Cowboys made, releasing Elliott after only 7 years...but Cook missed most of his rookie season. Zeke has almost 2200 career touches, Cook a bit over 1500. They're both the same age...birthdays are only a couple weeks apart. They'll probably both latch on with other teams, altho what they'll get offered remains to be seen. And yet, only 3 got drafted before the 3rd round, and I count only 18 total, with half of them in rounds 5-7. Odds of making the team aren't that good.

We do not mention the Flying Dutchmen in polite company. Fortunately for you, you only mentioned them here.......

Clear evidence of East Coast Bias.

In the Athletic's morning newsletter, they pointed out that the Player's Council had to approve this merger...and that is by NO means a foregone conclusion. Had my usual adjustment; my chiro is an avid golfer. He said the same...and we both agreed that Monahan's cut his own throat. It is NOT certain this merger is a done deal. This is looking to be similar to the soccer Super League announcement, that crashed and burned so thoroughly. Monahan didn't talk it over with any of the US networks, either, so they're blindsided. Congress is NOT happy; there's talk of pulling their charitable status, which could arguably cause serious problems with MANY tournament sponsorships.

Well, we've certainly seen readiness reports that were complete fabrications. They paint this rosy picture, but we know the truth from the battlefield results. OH GOD............ STUPID STUPID FREAKING STUPID kid and his dad get gunned down by someone else AT THEIR FREAKING HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION CEREMONY!!!!!! In front of the entire class and families.... TO HELL WITH EVERY DAMN POLITICIAN WHO REFUSES TO DO JACK ABOUT GUN CONTROL!!!!!

The guidelines are...terrible. Def/rDef...those are separate numbers. For total DEF, what...add the Def and rDef? OK...but do you take the high end on both? I'll use middle of the total DEF suggested...balanced however you like. DCs DEF ratio AVG Stun High Stun 12 22 1.83 20 26 14 37 2.64 12 19 16 52 3.25 4 12 20 72 3.60 -2 8 12d6 is SERIOUSLY low on defenses; 16d6 and 20d6 are too high. (High Stun == average 4 per die. That's very unlikely with 20d6...only about 10% of the time, whereas it's about 20% for 14d6.) If we use this, tho, rather than the 25 DEF...that's the character's Normal Def only...the 9d6 attack does nothing most of the time. Which is what Hugh was getting at. I will say, too: I'm influenced because I *love* Damage Reduction. Because I don't *want* to buy 35 or so DEF for a 14d6 campaign. That's just too high; 21 BODY on 14d6 would be amazing. The mean BODY is, of course, 14; the standard deviation of BODY is SQRT(14) * SQRT(1/3), or a touch over 2. So 21 is outside 3 standard deviations, that's getting into the "one roll per 1000" range. Yet this isn't getting anywhere close. When you're buying standard defenses, tho, you HAVE to buy that much to avoid being stunned with every shot. (Or you're buying a ridiculously high CON, which has almost no game value now OTHER than avoiding getting stunned...and even then, you'll get knocked out REAL fast.) As the damage levels rise, I strongly prefer a layered, combination defense, but where STUN reduction takes center stage: damage negation OR damage reduction. The problem with both is they're expensive as heck...but in part that's because they also BOTH work against AVAD attacks. This is conflating 2 things I don't necessarily want, and makes cost analysis impossible. But at least they offer a more balanced approach...both handle lowering the ridiculous amount of STUN, relative to the BODY, better.

Character has a ranged attack power with Half Range Modifier. Character also has, let's say, 3 PSLs to offset Range Mods, and they're usable for the application of the power in question. Range to target is 200 meters, so the range mod is -10. What is the proper order here? a) Half Range Mod first, then PSLs. Half of -10 is -5; the PSLs take it to -2. b) PSLs first, then halve the result. PSLs reduce -10 to -7; half of that would be -3 by the usual rounding rules. I'm largely inclined to the former, since Half Range Modifier is rather expensive, as an advantage on the overall attack power, and it has to be purchased on a power by power basis. Half Range Modifier is only mentioned in passing in 6E1, as an option, and I don't see anything in the errata on this either.

They do have several unusual nuances, so I could see this.

I may be misunderstanding, but I'm hearing 2 separate things here. Some campaigns use an Active Point limit. Sometimes this is on attacks and similar, others its for any power; some argue that since frameworks are powers, it counts there too, but IMO that's a complete misread. If you're implementing an active point cap: --decide WHAT it applies to. Attacks is the most common; if you try to apply it to, say, Multiform or Duplicate, you're saying those powers can't be used, pretty much. --We have to distinguish 2 things...an "active point cap" that's a campaign guideline is quite different from the active point limit in a VPP or MP. The latter uses ALL advantages and adders, always, because that's RAW. A campaign guideline can be a bit more versatile, but the only one I'd exclude on a combat power would be Reduced END. That's because my builds are based on fairly high-power fictional settings. The higher your speed goes, and with more powerful attacks...I'd rather see Reduced END than 40 REC. 6 SPD, 12d6 attacks? 36 END per turn, without considering movement. But IMO AP caps are the wrong approach. The section you're looking at deals with damage classes...and DC caps are a reasonable starting point. If you're linking 2 attack powers, then I'd say --compute the DCs in each attack separately, as noted in that section. --if both attacks deal standard damage, normal or killing, then I'd probably say add half the DCs of the smaller attack. --if either or both deal non-standard damage, add the full DCs together. I'd look long and hard at people wanting to link high-damage attacks together, particularly if it's simply a way to add a ton more damage cheap.

Considering that they pulled him out on April 28th, and he hasn't pitched since...yeah, that sounds likely. But forget it this year altogether, and who knows how next year will go. The Rangers don't have a history of maintaining excellence year after year...they've had a few good years in a row, IIRC, but that's all, I think. And they have a separate, less optimistic trend: wilting in the summer heat. That said, now they've got a retractable roof stadium, so they *don't* have to face the brutal central Texas heat.

Jacob DeGrom needs Tommy John surgery on his elbow. Out for the rest of this year AND most of next season. Rangers will end up paying him about $2.5M per inning pitched for '23 and '24, if he can't come back to pitch at the end of next season.