Squall

Re: X-Men: The Next Generation campaign on Hero Central I always liked psych lims, too. I've always felt like anyone who took up the life of adventurer or caped crusader or whatever other name for "super hero" you like to think up...would have to, well, have some issues. I tend to go with 50ish points for most of mine, minimum. They might be more balanced than you average D&D adventurer, but still. I figure superheroes have to have some deeply rooted reason for doing what they do, the way they do it.

Re: Pet Powers I haven't played in enough games to really have a "signature" yet, but a trend I've noticed in myself is that I like CSL's. Even though I know it normally makes more sense to just buy up your DEX instead, I like the flexibility and the thinking that goes into declaring where CSL's go. I've lately been putting a lot of variable advantages onto my characters, too, so that I can get extra knockback against some opponents, armor piercing against tough guys, target a hex against the nimble baddies, or do the "I can do this all day!" 0 END thing if I have to. I like options, I guess. I'm a big fan of Combat Pool in Shadowrun, Expertise/Power Attack in d20 stuff, and other mechanics in that vein. Just let me feel like I'm doing more than saying "I hit him" and grabbing the dice, y'know?

Re: X-Men: The Next Generation campaign on Hero Central I'm waffling around on Rook's hypothetical power scheme, now. I thought swiping Emma's diamond-form (and going for maybe a 30 STR in that form, and decent PD/ED) would just be a good way to be a little more survivable -- but for some reason I'm just not digging it when I settle down to work on the character sheet. My initial idea for the Emma Frost/Scott Summers son was quite a bit more offensive in nature, with just blasts of concussive force coupled with some telepathic attacks...potent on the offensive, but kind of a glass cannon. It was always one of the things I respected about guys like Cyclops and Havok, in fact -- they were out there on the front lines without a healing factor or metal skin or even spidey-sense or anything. The highest powered game I've played in (out of my whopping repetoire of like six games total, anyways) was a 400 point (and in that one I was a flying Brick), so I think I'm just intimidated by the high point level and wanting to go "oh, and he's a Brick, sort of, too!" just because I'm a fraidy-cat. I'd like to be a little more "pure" and go with just offensive powers, but I'm afraid I'd be a liability to the team and/or I'd just die the first time someone looked at me angrily. Is it a legitimate concern, and I should suck it up and stick with the tacked-on feeling "diamond form" sort of thing, just so I'll be less afraid of being one-shotted? Or would someone in the 600 point range still be a viable character with just a few levels of combat luck, some CSL's to sink into defense from time to time, and an armored X-Men suit...and the bulk of his points gleefully thrown into a 100-point (or higher) energy blast sort of thing? Any chance I could get some rough guidelines for where OCV/DCV, defenses, and a reasonable damage class for a primary attack should probably be for this point level?

Re: X-Men: The Next Generation campaign on Hero Central Yeah, I'm not exactly a giant fan of much of their more recent offerings, myself (I've honestly switched most of my Marvel purchasing over to the Ultimate universe, in fact) -- it's just that, as I understand it, the X-Titles have been going through some pretty big changes lately. Most of my information of them from the last five years or so is largely word of mouth and/or Wikipedia entries, but Nightcrawler's some sort of demon now, Angel's some sort of angel now, Iceman can regenerate from being blown up (to the point he's reduced to being a frozen head carried under someone's arm), Cyclops lost his powers and starting blasting people with pistols, Quicksilver's a bad guy again (dammit) and can make clones of himself or something instead of having super speed, and just generally all kinds of crazy stuff seems to be going on. I'm concerned not so much because I want to address the modern stuff, but because some of the changes sound so outragious and important that I want to make sure it's okay not to address it, if that distinction makes sense. So I'm hazily trying to draw a line somewhere (even if it's just in my head!) to define where "but it's canon!" gets overpowered by "but it's stupid." For my own particular character, that line was somewhere after Frost and Cyclops started to show interest in one another, but somewhere before him losing his powers and stuff, and any other stupidity they roll up. I mostly just wanted to give Cyke some love and have someone play his next-gen offspring, without going the easy route and being yet another Cyclops/Jean Grey spawn.

Re: X-Men: The Next Generation campaign on Hero Central I'm scared for my first speedster to also be my first 600 point character ("Oh Pietro Junior, you've ruined me for other speedsters!"), so between that and the (mildly funnier) issue of the sister-obsessed relationships Northstar and Quicksilver are known for, I'll be working on something else. I've been at work overnight so haven't had a chance to look over the rest of the background information (in the New Avengers and New Thunderbolts games), so hopefully my backstory (so far) isn't trampling all over "canon" anywhere. I'm not sure right where official Marvel continuity cuts off and where the game picked up, so I'm trying to just wing it (aiming for a cut-off point somewhere around House of M, I guess). Criminy, and now I've got that act to follow (sheesh, here I am feeling clever for thinking up a first name, and Hermit's got a whole sheet done!?). Christian Alexander Summers, son of Scott "Cyclops" Summers and Emma "The White Queen" Frost. Code Name: Rook Other Aliases: "Slim" Identity: Secret (as X-Men go) Place of Birth/legal status: New York, New York; US Citizen with no criminal record Occupation: Adventurer/Charter Pilot Age: 23 Height: 6' 0" Weight: 179 lbs Hair: Brown Eyes: Blue Skills/Abilities: In normal human Christian Summers has the build of an athlete, and the normal strength of an adult human who engages in regular intensive physical activity. He is an accomplished pilot (having grown into the Summer's nack for it, several generations strong) that is licensed to fly, and also inherited his father's taste for fast cars (and the talent for driving them that has to come with it). He is a practiced martial artist, holding black belts in Judo and Aikido, and rounding out his studies with more traditional striking arts thanks to MEF self defense classes. Appearance: Christian inherited his father's square-jawed good looks and hair, but (optic blasts notwithstanding) his mother's eyes. He's in excellent shape, exercising routinely even before joining the X-Men Next. His fashion sense tends towards practicality and comfort, but he was raised in an upper class houehold all the same -- most of his casual wear comes from an LL Bean catalog, not a thrift store. He's quite a sunglass afficianado despite being in complete control of his powers. Known Mutant Powers: Rook is capable of firing concussive blasts of force from his eyes, of power rivalling his father's. His is also a metamorph capable of shifting his form to a flexible gem-like substance of near-diamond hardness (though with a ruby tint rather than the purer shimmering of his mother), and in that form his strength and durability increase to mild superhuman levels. He has impressive psionic shielding (through heredity as much as training), but shows no other psychic abilities despite promising testing. In Brief: Emma Frost always wanted to be a guiding hand for the next generation of mutants. While this desire first expressed itself in unarguably negative ways -- raising her own brood of Hellfire-club sponsored supervillains and trying to corrupt the young mutant Firestar are hardly the sorts of things one puts on a resume for a teaching position -- she eventually settled in with "the other side of the street," first working alongside Banshee as an instructor for Generation X, acting as a teacher on Genosha before tragedy struck, and later even serving (briefly) as headmistress of Xavier's own academy, the School For Gifted Youngsters. There was friction when she arrived, of course, old grudges and rightful mistrust causing all manner of argument and disharmony, but perhaps the largest slap on the face came when many team-mates felt she "stole" Cyclops, Scott Summers, from his long-time romantic interest, Jean Grey. Through the ups and downs of the X-Men and their extended family, it had seemed that Summers and Grey -- and the fact "Summers and Grey" went together so well -- were one of the school's only constants. The Summers/Grey marriage seemed the most natural thing in the world when they completed their vows, but several years later things fell apart. Scott accepted psychic therapy sessions from Emma, and it wasn't long before their conversations turned into a full-blown (if completely mental rather than physical) affair. The team's loyalties were split between their long-time field leader and Jean Grey, the redhead who had by many been considered the soul of the team. It wasn't the smoothest start to a relationship, but it also wouldn't be the lowest point for either of them. It was Emma's urge to teach, and Scott's growing sense of distance from the rest of the X-family, the Professor especially, that led to the pair of them accepting an offer from the MEF. It wasn't long after that Jean died, and many of Summer's old team-mates held it against him (Logan, especially) that he wasn't there at the end. In many ways, the final death of the Phoenix was the blade that severed the last of Scott's ties from the faculty and students of 1407 Graymalkin Lane. Reaching out for a new sense of permanance, something to hold onto in those dark times, he proposed. Less than a year later, their son was born. Emma kept busy with the rest of mutantkind's next generation, but Scott took to fathering with an eagerness bordering on the obsessive. He maintained an administrative position (in security) with their local MEF office, but wasn't as absorbed by his work as his wife. The White Queen seemed to barely speak to her son except for the times he was assigned to one of her classes. Rumors -- later accusations -- flew from her husband that Emma wasn't as interested in their son as she should have been due to his lack of true psionic abilities, but whatever the reasons for it, Christian grew up raised quite a bit more by his father than his mother...He developed his father's nack for piloting, his father's interest in the martial arts, inherited much of his father's natural charisma...and he was weaned on his father's stories of adventures with the X-Men more than anything else. Scott Summers suffered in silence, spoken to only curtly by those he once loved as family, through Charles Xavier's funeral. Emma Frost-Summers attended, but who knows where her mind was throughout the ceremony itself -- she may have been of grading papers from the astral, for all the emotion she showed. Their son spent the gloomy afternoon with a wide-eyed stare hidden behind Oakley sunglasses -- he was surrounded by his childhood heroes, the men and women he'd heard of from his father his entire life. He knew it was time. He was old enough. His mother was busy enough not to care, his father would -- someday! -- approve and understand. When Hank McCoy made his announcements, Christian made his decision. He was going to be an X-Man. He was going to be the X-Man. He'd fill the boots his father had left empty, and show his mother there was more to life than stock reports and psychic powers.

Re: X-Men: The Next Generation campaign on Hero Central HOLY POOP. I so need to get into this game. Unfortunately I just bought Ultimate Speedster so my head's all full of super speedster ideas (now if only the X-families had a speedster that wasn't gay, didn't have serious sister issues, or both at once, maybe I could think of an easy way to have one spawn a kid) (yeah, yeah, I know Quicksilver's been married and all that, I was just making a joke). My thinking cap is officially on, though. I've got enough favorites among the X-families I'll think of something, don't doubt it. For actual character submissions (wrapped up character sheets, etc), do you want them posted here, PMed here, PMed on Hero Central...?

Re: The Ultimate Weapon(s), per Wizard Entertainment I'd have put a bat-a-rang on there somewhere.

Re: Pulling Authority & Other Genres I'm honestly at the point -- after marathon-reading this thread -- that I don't understand why people are even responding to this guy any more. You're not going to change his mind. He's not going to "get it." People either understand the differences between moral standards of the heroic versus superheroic genres, or they don't. He's a don't.

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform? I'm pretty sure that, in the modern continuity (by which I mean pre-Infinite/OYL, I'm not caught up yet with the VERY new stuff), Captain Marvel really is Billy's personality, just in a new body and with the Wisdom of Solomon (sporadically) spicing things up. I remember a particular story arc where Billy (a thirteen-ish year old) had a perfectly normal boyish crush on the similarly-aged Courtney Whitmore/Stargirl, and it all bled over into the grown-up-looking Captain Marvel when he was "in costume." It caused some tension amongst the team, with folks giving Captain Marvel some very stern looks (and eventually a talking to, IIRC) because they thought he was entirely too old to be giving a young girl glances like that. I think he even ended up quitting the team over it, rather than giving up his secret identity. If stuff like that, complete with the mannerisms, speech patterns, etc, can all carry over I'd say it's more of an OIHID thing. He gets some social as well as physical stat mods out of it (PRE out the wazoo), but I've always been of the opinion (lacking familiarity with the Golden Age stuff, I admit) that it was always Billy "in there."

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform? So. How 'bout that Captain Marvel, fellas?

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform?

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform? Counter OT Rant! Mine's longer, because it's an argument I've gotten into many a time in recent months. I don't blame history buffs for expecting something else -- I know if I wasn't familiar with Miller's 300 ahead of time I probably would have been irritated, too. Me an' my MOLON LABE hat might've very well gotten up and walked out of the theater, in fact!

Re: DC's Captain Marvel: OIHID or Multiform? It's been stated time and again his stuff isn't canon, anyhow. Thankfully. I like my Sin City to stay in, well, Sin City.

Re: Spider-man stops assault on shopkeeper (A) That's going to vary from cop to cop, just like everything else. Some cops appreciate a hand from a civvie, some see those of us willing to stand up for one another as "cop wannabes." It's the sort of thing that's going to be viewed differently by every cop, in every situation. ( That old man'll get shot or stabbed, and (since law-abiding citizens in G.B. can't carry that sort of thing) not be able to do very much about it...but in the meantime, he can sleep at night for knowing he's doing the right thing by his fellow man. Hopefully he's able to avoid assault charges, in the meantime.

Re: Who Is... Your Favorite Villain? I gotta go Green Dragon. I've always liked the "normal human with enough kung-fu to still pull this off" when it comes to superheroes, so it's only natural I can respect that in a super villain, too.

Re: (Character) The American Samurai A few more skills (IE, a little more character depth) probably wouldn't kill ya, either. Honestly -- and I'm no pro at making characters, don't get me wrong -- it feels like you just sat down and said "I want to make a guy that can hit people with a sword," and that's 100% all you've got here. He can do one thing, and do it ridiculously well, and that's it. His superhero name could be Sword Hitter Guy.

Re: bourne You are correct, in that Escrima/Kali (with a K ) is the style used in the films. Good INT, solid physical attributes across the board, a few All-Combat skill levels. Good Drive score, Stealth, Climb, solid social skills (maybe with "Invisibility (requires a stealth roll)" or "Clinging (requires a Climb roll)" if you're feeling like powers instead of just skills. A good martial arts package, and Weapon Familiarity: All ( ) and you'd be pretty close.

Re: bourne I'm glad I'm not the only one that had serious issues trying to sit down and read the books. I made it through three of them, because I just hung up my Ludlum stuff forever. His dialog is atrocious (no one actually talks like that!), and his combat/action scenes are just...bad. "Rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling and OH GOD more gunfire and rolling and rolling and rolling" seriously sums up about half the fights in his novels. Ludlum had an awful lot of really cool ideas for characters and situations and storylines, but his details were horrible.

Re: CHAR: The Flash Just a thought (you're the experts, not me) -- how plausible would it be to build his "Missed Me!" power as a desolid, instead of just a DCV boost? It seems like every time the Flash really doesn't want to get hit, most attacks really just plain won't hit him.

Re: Superhero power levels I think the power shifts in comics is due not only to a change in writers/editors (for a consistency issue), but also to the perpetual title-hopping that's so common, and simply the longevity of the characters. I just read in my Essential Iron Fist where he tossed Wolverine around in melee like a chump, and gave Colossus a punch that sent the iron man flying out of the room, big metal arms flailing. Why was he so super badass? Well, not just because he's an awesome character ( ), but because it was HIS title. How many times have we seen Galactic Man beat the pants off Star Lad, because Galactic Man was the guy with his name on the cover? Then a few years (or just a few issues!) later, Galactic Man and Star Lad somehow have another accidental scrap, thrust together by nefarious circumstance, and this time Star Lad wins easily, just because it was Star Lad's monthly, this time. It's hard to have internal power consistency when you've got heroes duking it out all the time with the winner being determined solely by what comic you're reading. Heck, by that measure, Squirrel Girl should just about be running the Marvel Universe by now, she's so powerful. And character longevity. The longevity issue rears its head not only due to new creative teams coming in as time passes, and not only to the simple inevitability of "the longer something keeps going on, the more chances someone has to screw up a little bit," but also because I think there's some (demeaning? incorrect? accurate?) ideas concerning the attention span of comic book fans coming from the writers. If we know Superman is really strong because he can pick up a car in his first issue...how impressed will we be if he picks up a car again next time we read about his adventures? "Whooptie doo," most fans might think, "We already knew he could do that." So they get better and better as time progresses, in a way one-upping themselves constantly. It's been a long time since the Man of Steel was just able to leap a tall building with a single bound, or more powerful than a locomotive. Now he flies across galaxies effortlessly, and shoves around planets. Batman takes on more bad guys, intimidates everyone in the DC universe (not just the cowardly superstitious guys), and makes even more amazing leaps of logic and deduction. Daredevil can bend steel bars simply by sensing with a glance where their week points are, and can sit in the middle of New York city and listen for someone saying his name miles and miles away, all of a sudden. Wolverine kills a hundred ninjas in two pages of snikt-snakt berserker frenzy, not a dozen...and -- hey! -- how many is he gonna cut up next month to keep us impressed? It's a natural progression. Perhaps even an inevitable one; we see it in action movies and their ilk, too, don't we (with few exceptions, isn't the tradition for an action hero's sequel to always try to top the daring stunts and explosions and shoot outs from the first movie)?

Re: Paging Dr. Mid-Nite! Lookin' cool!

Re: Paging Dr. Mid-Nite! He's got some martial arts stuff, too (with plenty of NND or limb-disabling sort of strikes, to represent his mastery of anatomy), I'd think. He's not real heavy on gadgets or anything, though, is he? I'm really just trying to remember what exactly it is he does. The JSA tpb's I've got don't exactly feature him as a primary character or anything (too busy with Black Adam, Captain Marvel, etc).

Re: Various Star Damage And don't forget the best part -- that guy was on the same team as a dude who's character concept was "short hairy guy with claws, who can heal real fast" and "I dunno, maybe I'll play a black guy who's pretty strong and has really tough skin." Man, talk about some GM favoritism!

Re: Heroes and their compassion One that always jumps out at me is in Daredevil's Born Again arc. It's not exactly a tear-jerker or anything, but it reminds me that super heroes are good guys for more than their ability to give bad guys a black eye. **POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING** Every time I read it, I'm surprised at how much Cap and DD want Nuke to survive. There's this guy that's gone nuts in the heart of New York City with a machinegun (complete with grenade launcher, flamethrower, you name it), killed plenty of people, etc, etc -- and both of them realize he's not really sane enough to be held personally accountable for his actions. Cap talks to him in that militant way that makes Nuke feel safe, and they both do everything they can to keep him alive, even in a Frank Miller story. It's not a feel-good moment of the year or anything, but it reminds me what good guys do.

Re: SPD and DEX for superheroic martial artists? Scott's been described as "a Judo expert" since at least the Uncanny 150's or so, and he was the guy that gave the other X-Men hand to hand lessons (before Wolverine took over the role). The "six guys with his eyes closed" is in reference to an Ultimate X-Men story (don't know the issue off the top of my head), a solo story they did were he was accosted by a street gang, and didn't want to murder them all with crimson eyebeams despite one shoving him so his glasses fell off; he clamped his eyes shut, remembered where they'd been standing, listened for their footsteps, yadda yadda, and whooped up on 'em. Partially with bare hands, partially with his I'm-a-blind-kid cane. His martial arts abilities don't come up very often, because, well, eye blasts kind of trump them for most superfights. But they're there, and they've been there for a long time. You can still call them "hand wavium" or something scribbled out by a fanboy writer if you want to, but even if so they're excuses and fan-fiction that's a good 30 years old. Also keep in mind -- it's been established as canon in more recent years that mutants/metahumans are just innately better than human, in terms of physical ability, healing time, etc. Not everyone in tights and a mask is Wolverine or The Flash, but in both major comics universes, they've been going on for the last several years, at least, about the innate resiliency of metahumans, the incredible stamina most mutants have, yadda yadda yadda. I think they did so partially to excuse themselves for 50+ years of people surviving all sorts of otherwise fatal attacks, but it IS still "canon" precedent for this sort of thing. Meta = Better (Batman notwithstanding), at least where raw physical abilities are concerned in the two big comic u's.