jkwleisemann

Re: The Things I've Learned Playing A Mentalist Never. Just like the rest of us.

Re: The Things I've Learned Playing A Mentalist Right up until the Sentinels demonstrated that they were immune to mental powers. Y'see, that's the funny thing about all the characters being honestly convined that He Knew Better Than They Did, something he reinforced at every point, without having to use his mental powers to do it. Those niggling little doubts were always countered by the fact that he was far more experienced and really did have the best interests of the long-term situation in mind.... Besides? Is it *really* that bad to mind-wipe and re-program the Bad Guys? Really? (Here's a hint - the answer is YES!)

Re: The Things I've Learned Playing A Mentalist Don't get caught up in power names. Again, SFX > Mechanics/Name of a Power. A 25-pt Normal Summon with plenty of multipliers for being able to call lots of people and the Slavishly Loyal advantage = a Very Thick Human Shield. Some might argue that AoE Mind Control would be the way to build that, but I found it far more reasonable to just use a Summon. As a note, yes, that was on a villain.

Re: The things I've learned playing a Martial Artist Be very, very careful about the 'on' part of that. GM's, for some strange reason, get a little... miffed... if you put them in a sleeper hold....

Re: The thing's I've learned playing a Brick... Great, now I've got the mental image of the Brick rearing back and getting ready to punch, and the scenery screaming and Aborting to Dive for Cover.

Re: The things I've learned playing a Speedster... Improving your acceleration is cheap. Read that however you want. Only needing 1-hex to get up to full speed can be very, very useful in congested city streets.

Re: What I learned playing a blaster! Knockback is your friend. Seriously. Double-KB is a stop-sign for a reason. Sure, it's +3/4 worth of advantage, but you don't have to take DEF off of the body involved. A 7d6 2x KB attack will, on average, knock your opponent back 7". That's a bonus 7d6 damage right there, if you've got a wall handy. And if there's a cliff or skyscraper handy... well, what's the terminal velocity of the enemy brick again?

Re: The things I've learned playing a Martial Artist Fair enough. On the other hand.... You are the most point efficient damage-dealing machine on the field. Work with it. SPD of 6, OCV around 10-ish, add maneuvers and CSL's to bring that up around 13-15, and even a STR 30 dishes out 10d6 damage just about every attack (with a maneuver that cost you maybe 5 points) - and that's before you add in bonus Martial DC's at 4 points a pop. Maybe I can't bench press a tank. But I can put my bare fist through it, grab the commander, and pull him back out through the hole before threatening to use him as the Focus for my next Missile Deflect against the big gun. So can your average brick, but it's more efficient when the skinny 80 year old does it than the guy who's 10 feet of rock.

Re: The Things I've Learned Playing A Mentalist Actually, he was the team leader. It was an XMen-style setting, but the person running the "Prof." gave him all the moral strictures of Aleister Crowley on a bad day. Mentalists, pure telepathic mentalists, don't hold up well against Sentinel Robot attacks, even if they do also have incredible Luck-related powers. That one should probably be added to the thread's list of Things Learned. Neither does a team of 200-point teen heroes. Several red smears in the dirt, with survivors scattering to the winds.

Re: The Things I've Learned Playing A Mentalist This one's more of a "things I learned playing with a mentalist," but still viable: Even if you're 'the world's most powerful telepath,' it is not kosher to mind-control every freakin' enemy you encounter, mind-wipe them, and turn them into a hero. Yes, that happened in one I was involved in. No, I wasn't the person who approved the character. Yes, everybody was living in abject terror of the borderline sociopathic Professor X clone who believed that convenience was enough of a reason to go erasing people's entire personalities and rewriting them. No, the campaign didn't last long enough for one of us to build up the guts to find out if he really did have a telekinetic shield that'd stop a bullet to the back of the brain. Given how it ended instead, I really wish it had.

Re: I can't wrap my head around a....

Re: What Would Your Character See? Void: Very Skywalker-ish, actually. He's been on the losing end of a fight with the Purity League (his campaign's IHA) for a very long time, and while he's never pulled a Magneto and turned back against the normal folks, it's one of the things that scares him. In the dream-world, he'd find himself chasing after the White Knight, who'd be slaughtering innocents (human and mutant alike) in the process of escaping. Void would finally catch up with him and break through his power-armor - only to find himself wearing it. That would probably snap him out of it too, really. While he's terrified of becoming the sort of monster his enemies are, he also logically realizes that he can't be in two places at once. A variant that would leave him far more trapped would be a nightmare regarding his mental split being completed. To be conscious as Dominic DuBey, trapped in his body as Void controlled it and unleashing his anger on the rest of the human world, against the people who killed his family and the people he privately believes (but would never admit to believing) condoned the act. How he'd get out of that one, without spotting a loop in the illusion, I'm not sure. Dominic's personality is increasingly the submissive one. Huntress: Her worst nightmare would be to be caught, stripped of her suit, and forced to watch as her work was stolen and put to evil uses, all while going through methamphetamine withdrawal. The good news is that she'd probably snap out of it when her body decided it needed its next fix, but she would be painfully paranoid in the following days. Darkchild: Her worst nightmare, in many ways, resembles Bewitched. Only rather than being married to a person who doesn't understand or accept magic, forcing her to conceal it, she'd be married to her cousin, from the more decadent side of the Spellborne family. Stripped of her powers and forced to support him in his insane world-takeover schemes, to say nothing of carrying even more children just as inbred and insane as their father, would be something she'd rail against to the last. Unfortunately, as it's also something that's come *very* close to happening in the past, unless she was able to notice the magical/psychic effect and break out of it (Mental Awareness), she'd probably have to be rescued by somebody, probably her boyfriend, who would force her to snap out of it as soon as he showed up (no way she'd accept the dream-world unless it somehow showed her his death.)

Re: [GM Help Needed] Superhero Mystries Honestly? I watch/read a lot of Poirot and Columbo. Sherlock Holmes, while amusing, tends to focus on forensic interpretation that either (1) the characters can't do or (2) powers can make far too easy. As for bamboozling the players long enough for it to be fun... same thing. Admittedly, Columbo made it a habit of showing folks who did it, then you watched him break them down and make them confess. But Poirot and his mysteries were masterworks of "give them all the information they need to hang themselves accusing the wrong person." Usually, there would be a preponderance of evidence that, at first glance, points towards one obvious suspect. In the end, once you actually analyze the evidence, you poke the holes through it and find out who's reallly guilty. Five Little Pigs, The Hollow, and Sad Cypress are all pretty good examples of this. Having more than one 'possible guilty party' really is the key in cases like that though. If there's only one real suspect... your players tend to notice it. Also, keep in mind that the theory about supers in mysteries - that it's too easy to predict because "well, only Laser Guy has laser blasts, so it must be him" can usually be overcome by any resourceful gadgeteer who wants to pull a frame-up job. ^^

Re: WWYCD if their reflection suddenly winked at them?

Re: WWYCD if a supers-eating wave swept reality?

Re: WWYCD - a deal with an extradimensional sadistic entity That occurred to me too, but I assumed that he'd balk at letting 'self-torture' qualify, as you know the justification for it all. And, to be honest, most of my char's would balk at that too... though one could argue that Void accomplishes it simply by continuing to breathe from one day to the next. As for the others, Huntress and Darkchild would be staring at him and blinking in somewhat stunned silence (and Darkchild, while she'd think of the S&M option, has a beau who came out of an abusive home life... so no way in Hell would he go along with it.) On the other hand, like I said, a lot of the others would just make a point that they're going to need either some leeway, or some resources, to keep doing this for 10 years straight. After that's taken care of, he'll end up getting one of the strangest views of pain and torture in the cosmos.... And their teammates will probably *really* not want to know what's going on. I mean... Poor GM.

Re: WWYCD if their reflection suddenly winked at them? Void: Quietly stare back at the reflection, then yell for Darkchild to get her furry tail in there and explain what the heck's going on. Hunter: Be found in the corner, her notes clutched to her chest, glaring at the mirror. Darkchild: Turn to all the mirrors involved and ream Coyote, Loki, or whatever trickster was involved out for screwing with her friends - that wasn't part of the bargain. Then, if that didn't work, start working up exorcisms. Me (since you *did* ask): "Their reflections winked... so what's the punchline?"

Re: WWYCD if a supers-eating wave swept reality?

Re: WWYCD - a deal with an extradimensional sadistic entity Y'know, he's got a loophole in there that some of my friends could drive a starship through. Of course, their PC's happen to have DNPC's who'd enjoy that sort of treatment. S&M clubs can be handy for situations like this.

Re: WWYCD: Discovering the nature of reality? Well, we view retcon as a bad thing here, but think about it this way - from their perspective, having this joker 'fix' things in their lives wouldn't be retconning any more than using time travel to fix something significant to them would be. It'd be fixing the lives that this sadistic/masochistic SOB gave them. So, as long as they were the ones who wanted the change made, I don't see why they'd resent it being made.

Re: Not quite a WWYCD: YWUA your PC... Scream and wonder where their muscles/various anatomical bits/other things they happened to be fond of went? I mean, we're talking about taking a minor mutant with a Batman complex, a super-suit designer, or a teenaged deity summoner (both of the last two being female) and putting them into an overweight college-student male. While they might eventually recover and start looking for a way back, I'd really hope that they're not heading out to do hero stuffs, because if they are, I'm screwed when I get back home. Though I suppose that worse things could happen than Darkchild using magic to get me in better shape....

Re: WWYCD: Discovering the nature of reality? Me: Well, that depends on whether or not the editing actually worked. If it did, then that means I've actually been influencing/creating their world, and I've got a heck of a lot to answer for. Probably start begging for forgiveness and doing some real fast editing. Being a Tragedian can lead to uncomfortable back stories.... If it didn't, then I've at least got plausible deniability that all I was doing was chronicling what happened in their world. Stand behind that, hope that the portal can be opened again before Void's sedatives wear off, give Huntress an apologetic (if uncomfortable) hug for what's probably coming up in her life, and point out to Darkchild that editing isn't really going to help too much. Either way, after that, try and figure out what the heck just happened and if there's any way to check in on some of the other worlds I've been involved with; there are muses I want to try and pull out of harm's way just in time to save their tails and take somewhere safer.

Re: Not quite a WWYCD: YWUA your PC... Heh - well, that depends on which of my champions I've become. Void: I don't have a freakin' clue how to do anything that he can do, except for minor energy absorption. Darned skill-based freaks. Frankly, the only way to avoid getting us both killed would be to hunker down in a safe place and pray we get switched back pretty soon. Huntress: I'm going to assume that we're saying I would know how to operate her power-suit, as that's a slightly less in-depth skillset than Void's. In that case, probably try to help, but fall flat on my face half the time courtesy of not having any idea how to move in a female body, let alone one that weights about a third less than I currently do. Darkchild: While the balance-and-movement problem would only be exacerbated here (she's even smaller than Huntress), at least I'd have an inherent power skillset that I've got a reasonable idea how to exploit here. First step is to deal with the immediate threat, probably using a bit of the Power Pool to help 'give me' the instincts and reflexes necessary to actually use her body properly. After that, figure out what the blazes happened and get it reversed as quickly as possible. And never, ever let word of the fact that I spent part of my life as an 18 year old girl get out.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith On the grounds of "they can't make choices anymore, period," I'll give you that one. Though that involves accepting, among other things, that killing somebody to defend another is evil, which is something that I, frankly, cannot accept. That all depends on where you view the ending of a life. From your perspective, it's pegging the needle, so you can't go any further. From mine, it's an act that takes a good justification to keep from being on that side, but basic physical actions are rarely, if ever, inherently evil. And yet, there is no objective argument that could actually conclusively support either of our stances against the other, is there? For the record I, at least, don't consider "it is" to be an objective argument, because there's no more evidence of that being true than my saying "it isn't." You say that killing is inherently evil, and that to kill for survival or defense is also evil (which, as a note, makes pretty much all life inherently evil). I deny that statement. Ultimately, there's no real evidence that either one of us is correct. That's one of the funny little problems with moral absolutism. All too often, arguments end up that way when people disagree on what the moral absolutes are.

Re: Self Defeating Powers Those come out of Artax's spellbook? :-P For those of you who don't get the reference... you owe it to yourselves to read Nodwick. And PS238, really, though it's not related to the joke....