Robyn

Re: On the Use and Abuse of Character Weaknesses....

Re: I want to build my base out of plastique It's the folding base! Fully collapsible into a mere fraction of its working size! Re-expansion is up to the villain in charge, of course. Hopefully telekinetic When the villain is away, noone else can come in to play (or steal her toys). When the heroes break in and take out the villain, the base promptly Entangles them under several tons of plastique.

Re: Wizard's immunity to the magical SFX they use

Re: I want to build my base out of plastique Maybe he had it in mind as an inescapable deathtrap. "You may have defeated me, Mr. Bond, but you shall not escape this place alive!" The hidden costs are a neverending supply of plastique. Want some more? Just go back to your base and tear out a piece of the wall.

On page 487 on 5ER, the Explosives table has an entry for "Plastic Explosive (1 block)". The damage was 15d6 Normal, but at the time an entirely inappropriate thought was running through my mind, inspired by my recollection of an old saying "enough on me to blow up the entire block" . . . what if you had an entire city block made out of plastic explosives? Then, my thoughts turned to the next logical step in that sequence: What if your entire base was built using plastic explosives? How much would this cost? Hypothetically speaking, of course

I'm told, from time to time, that I'm overthinking things. But if I engage in more thought than someone else upon a given topic, wouldn't I be better qualified than they to determine when I've been thinking too much about it? I am excellently positioned to identify overthinking, and indeed do have some criteria for it. I will now share these criteria, as drawn from my own experience, and built through HERO mechanics +xINT, No Conscious Control (no handwaving this; the power cannot be invoked at will, it may or may not activate when the character is using INT whether more INT is needed or not, and will typically shut off when the character ceases activities that do not require boosted INT anymore), Activation Roll with Burnout, Side Effect: headaches (Always; they kick in when the +xINT power wears off) If possible, the "-1/10AP" should be taken from RSR and applied to the Activation Roll, or even -1/5AP since this fits the INT increments (and their corresponding bonuses to INT-based skills) better.

Re: Bizarre Spell Ideas Head-turning Beauty: As you walk around, say, a park (yes, idea inspired by jkwleisemann ), there will be visible reactions. The surprising part is that these will come from everywhere, including those who are not quite human. Even inanimate objects such as trees, flowers, and light poles will turn to look as you go by. Sadly, this spell has no effect on humans, who are oblivious to the caster's beauty.

Re: Build challenge: stasis fields I think you're saying that each target is repeatedly affected by the power, since it is Continuous*, and the first effect counts as all the others rolled into one. I like the idea that, once a stasis field affects somebody once, it doesn't need to roll to continue affecting them (which, considering the rolls would be made in the same moment it first tried to affect them, would lead to some very quickly resolved paradoxes). *Or would AOE alone maintain the application of the power? If a character teleports/EDM's from one AOE into an identical AOE in another dimension, does that count as leaving one and entering the new one? Does it matter if there is any "transit time"? A big one for me was how to let it turn off (or be disabled) later, with the affected target(s) emerging in the present at that time.

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest The sad part is that, if you passed this by the GM before the other players presented their characters, the GM would probably refuse to give them any point values for Vulnerabilities, Susceptibilities, or Limitations on their powers that said "extra effect only against X". Of course, at that point, it's a race between the GM and players to see who kills you first

Re: The Munchkin Build Contest Variable (Special) Effect bought as a Naked Advantage. All you have to worry about from then on are the mechanics. As a twist, take UBO for the Naked Advantage. All your teammates can use whatever SFX they'd like for their powers. But for the final straw, take UAA on your Naked Advantage. Now you can force your opponents to use different SFX, ruining whatever synergy they had. Either form of UOO might require Constant or a similar Advantage to work properly.

Here's the story: wizards are immune (invulnerable, unaffected by, pick your favorite term ) to magic that has the same "source" as their own magic. Here are the mechanics: mandatory Limitations on all their own spells to save points by "cannot affect other wizards who use same SFX", or Personal Immunity for each spell (I'm not quite sure how this would work out). Here's the question: by preference or experience, how would you handle this or recommend another GM to handle it?

This is one of the things which, after reading 5ER (well, most of it, anyway ), I still think of as a tricky build. In the affected area, time stops; those inside are frozen, cannot perceive (because, subjectively, nothing is happening during the no-time), and will not age. It is also impossible to harm those inside a stasis field because any effect that enters it will instantly become affected as well. There are several ways to do this with EDM, of course. The tricky part turns out to be in the details. How accurately can you replicate the criteria above? Exact builds are preferred for EDM, but even general ideas of how to use other powers for any of this would be appreciated

Re: Alignment Issues I must confess that your logic here is quite beyond me. You go from "responding to THIS post" to "so there is no obligation to respond to any particular idea". You can't simultaneously be responding to a post, and (because you can respond to that post) NOT responding to the ideas raised in it. Well, you can, but it's misleading and irrelevant. As an argument, it would be a straw man. Since you seemed to be correcting me, not arguing: I simply pointed out that, "here" (where my post was set in), "Deity" was quite different from "Force of Nature". It's not your "here".

Re: Alignment Issues That's your campaign. Please note that I was responding to arcady's post, which wasn't presented specifically for your campaign. In fact, his post (just) preceeds your mention of the article you wrote, so it's very unlikely he was even thinking of that when he posted. Gravity, like several other laws of physics, could be a Force of Nature. Gods, again borrowing from my idea, are not "impersonal, aloof" beings but quite human.

Re: Alignment Issues

Re: Opinion Fluff: Game Philosophies 1.5) The rules and philosophies of the group are codified, but never spoken of or even alluded to, just mindlessly (and soundlessly) obeyed. Any questions about the rules will be met with silence; any questions about why noone is saying anything will be likewise met with a resounding silence. Not ignored, or disregarded. They're just not going to say anything. This describes an uncomfortable number of playing groups

Re: I finished reading 5th Edition, Revised I was originally thinking of a single-player game, like Sinbad, but as I wrote it I noticed how "game" might have multiple meanings. How about the Gods themselves? Is there any difference between that and the GM? If the mythology of characters in the campaign setting firmly believes that everything (good and bad) which happens to anyone is the work of some deity or another, does it matter whether this belief is right or wrong? (By the way, I found the missing review, and the post above has been corrected to point to the URL.)

Re: Opinion Fluff: Game Philosophies But as an unstated presumption, how does that default? Sorry.

Re: Opinion Fluff: Game Philosophies Definitely neither 1 nor 2. If it's not specified, it isn't specified (yes, those are essentially the same phrases, just shifting the "is" contraction) The first two may both apply to a given situation, depending on how the question is phrased; no specific examples come to mind, it's just a thought, but may lead to their conflation.

Re: I finished reading 5th Edition, Revised

Re: I finished reading 5th Edition, Revised

Re: On the Use and Abuse of Character Weaknesses.... If you're overly aggressive with what isn't known, it may be possible to eliminate it (albeit at the cost of your character inexplicably forgetting much of what they should know - but maybe you're playing a chronic amnesiac). Or you could just be a complete innocent as a player, and not know anything that your character doesn't.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? You probably, then, have the book known as "FRED", usually used to refer to the 2001 edition which had ~390 pages. Christopher was quoting from the 2004 Revised Edition, which has ~590 pages.

Re: Name Help

Re: On the Use and Abuse of Character Weaknesses....