Durzan Malakim

Actually the second 18 was an EGO roll to push teleport. That 18 burned out teleport and reduced Dread to her run speed. The Acrobatics roll to dive into the ship was a failure, a 16, just not an 18. Still 18, 18, and 16 was a bad combo. Now if I had been rolling for D&D stats I'd be off to a good start.

Flexibility is what makes English both the "Devil language" and "the language of the Devil."

I've seen hero personal lives come up in two different ways in our group. When one story arc ends and before we start another we tend to have a round-table where the GM asks each of us, "What has your character being doing in their off time?" This gives every character some time in the spotlight, but it can also mean some of us zone out/don't play while we're not the focus of attention. When it's my turn, I prefer off-time activities that might conceivably include my cohorts and give them permission to participate in my personal life. We've gotten some interesting stories and plot hooks from that approach. A character's personal life can also generate adventure seeds for the group. Ideally one character's personal mission becomes the group's mission, but so far all we've had is one character's hunted becoming the group's problem. Frankly, I'd prefer we took turns completing personal missions as a group. We have the story hooks to do it. We could help our wizard become the archmagus. We could help our Jedi yeti recover his memory and find Shangra La. This would require us to be comfortable being the guest star in someone else's solo movie, but I think it would make for some good stories.

This premise reminds me of Brandon Sanderson's The Reckoners series. In that series, there's a reason power corrupts most people. Certainly you have an opportunity to create a common origin story or perhaps have players explain why they weren't corrupted. I'd also expect this multiverse to have a lot prejudice against powered-people since they are mostly villains behaving badly. I suspect there would be a strong selective-pressure for invulnerability or a high-villain mortality rate in the beginning.

Here today, retconned tomorrow.

Since Mechanon is working through catspaws, I'd suggest he provides his dupes a new augmented-reality/virtual-reality item that explodes in popularity. The device can be anything, but if you're looking for ideas I suggest the Wingman glasses from the novel After On. They are basically just a Google Glass upgrade linked to an AI. The dupes believe the glasses slowly brainwash and make their wearers more compliant, which they can do, but Mechanon would obviously have the override codes to transform people into full on borg-cyber-zombies. Who doesn't love a good old-fashioned zombie apocalypse?

I suggest making him a Catalonian pigment scientist who dabbles in day trading because no one expects the Spanish ink position.

Our group faced a variation of this scenario where a V'hanian starship lost power above the Bay Area. Our solution was for our wizard Hexen to aid my Force Field controller Valiant. With boosted strength I was able to divert the falling ship into the Pacific Ocean. Of course we then had to contend with the resulting tidal wave. Some teamwork and a boosted force wall allowed us to create a counter wave and save the Bay Area. Now we have to deal with the salvaged alien technology and keep it from falling into the wrong hands, although the wrong hands may actually be our own given how often hijinks ensue around us.

The chances of rolling 2 or less BODY with a 6d6 attack is around 0.36%, which is approximately 4 times in a thousand rolls. Against targets with resistant defenses there is no effective difference between 2 BODY and 0 BODY. Against unprotected targets you could just hand-wave/role-play it as a "1 in a million" chance of being grazed by a bullet instead of being damaged.

This particular effect requires having a die roll that produces 0 BODY. It's what I modeled for Nolgroth. It also makes the average damage match standard Killing Attacks, but you're still unlikely to roll either extremely high or extremely low. It's still possible but much more rare.

I stand corrected. You're only slightly deadlier on average. :-) Actually, being consistently limited to average damage may mean you never overcome someone's defenses to do BODY damage. It will depend on your campaign norms for defense. For example, if your campaign norm was 10 resistant defense, then you'd only exceed that defense around 1% of the time compared to 16% of the time for a normal Killing Attack. If that's what you're going for, then mission accomplished.

It does if you want to allow rolls that produce low STUN and high BODY. You calculate STUN from the number on the die so higher number is higher STUN. That pretty much means you have to choose 3 to 5. If you don't care about low STUN and high BODY, pick any number you want.

Understood. Just be aware that using this method makes killing attacks deadlier on average because your minimum damage is now the number of dice you roll. If you want the average damage to match a standard Killing Attack you need a 0 BODY value.

Narrative determinism demands that your future self warn you of a future event in the most cryptic way possible. "Don't eat the apple!"

To preserve the distribution listed earlier, you need to assign the 0 BODY result to another die value such as: Die value 1 does 2 BODY Die value 2 does 1 BODY Die value 3 does 0 BODY Die value 4 does 1 BODY Die value 5 does 1 BODY Die value 6 does 2 BODY Pick your least favorite middle number and make it a non-contributor.

That's just what a superhero with a Secret Identity would say to make us believe he doesn't already have powers. That's right, I'm (Hunted) Watching you, sir.

Since each Killing Attack die is normally 3 DCs, I'd suggest one of these methods, which have increasing variance and complexity: No Variance Penetrating: Total DCs / 3 = Penetrating Damage Some Variance Penetrating: [Total DCs / 3] + [Count the number of ones and sixes in roll. Subtract one if there are more ones. Add one if there are more sixes] = Penetrating Damage More Variance Penetrating: [Total DCs / 3] + [Count the number of ones / 3, round result, and subtract this from total] and [Count the number of sixes / 3, round result, and add this to the total]. = Penetrating Damage If you want more variance than that, revert to standard Killing Attack and Penetrating mechanics.

Here's the curve with the updated formula of 1=0, 2-4=1, and 5-6=2. I also added a normal attack for comparison. Here is some additional data on averages and variance. 6DCs2d6 Killing Attack averages 7 BODY and there are 5 values within one standard deviation (2.42): 5 to 9 BODY. 6d6 Alt-Killing Attack averages 7 BODY and there are 5 values within one standard deviation (1.68): 5 to 9 BODY. 6d6 Normal Attack averages 6 BODY and there are 3 values within one standard deviation (1.41): 5 to 7 BODY. 15DCs5d6 Killing Attack averages 17.5 BODY and there are 8 values within one standard deviation (3.82): 14 to 21 BODY. 15d6 Alt-Killing Attack averages 17.5 BODY and there are 6 values within one standard deviation (2.66): 15 to 20 BODY. 15d6 Normal Attack averages 15 BODY and there are 5 values within one standard deviation (2.24): 13 to 17 BODY. 21DCs7d6 Killing Attack averages 24.5 BODY and there are 10 values within one standard deviation (4.52): 20 to 29 BODY. 21d6 Alt-Killing Attack averages 24.5 BODY and there are 8 values within one standard deviation (3.15): 21 to 28 BODY. 21d6 Normal Attack averages 21 BODY and there are 6 values within one standard deviation (2.65): 22 to 27 BODY. No matter which Killing Attack method you use, the averages will be the same. The only thing that changes is the variance. A standard Killing Attack damage roll provides more variance and will produce maximum or minimum rolls more frequently (within your lifetime). An Alternate Killing Attack damage roll greatly reduces variance. You'll effectively never roll minimum or maximum damage, and instead most rolls will stay close to the average. Whether you consider these results a bug or a feature depends on your risk-to-reward preferences. If you want to roll really big and really small numbers stick with the standard Killing Attack damage. If you prefer consistently rolling damage near the average, use the alternate Killing attack roll.

This rule significantly changes the average BODY damage done per hit. There's a 79% chance of doing 7 to 9 BODY, which is almost indistinguishable from doing (standard effect +1) per die. There is no chance of doing less than 6 BODY, and there is less than a 2% chance of doing 11 to 12 BODY. See: http://anydice.com/program/c9e5 to compare a standard 2d6 killing attack to your 6d-alternate-killing-attack.

I agree that @Lucius has the coolest approach to building a bag of holding using a power. Who doesn't love a time-travel-wormhole/TARDIS? If you go this route you can play around with seeming paradoxes such as being able to withdraw items you don't remember putting in. Do you eventually travel to the past and put items in the bag? Perhaps you can withdraw any item someone else has put in provided you can think about it with sufficient detail. Who knows what could come out of that bag because its time has come. You might also consider modeling the bag as a perk using the vehicle and base rules. This has the advantage that in heroic campaigns you could buy the bag with money rather than spend character points. Since the game effects are holding your stuff and giving it back to you when you ask for it, the only characteristics you need are STR for carrying capacity and INT to understand what you ask for. Typically a bag of holding is an unbreakable magic item, but you can provide BODY and defenses if you want to make it breakable.

None of these builds address some of the more useful qualities of a traditional bag of holding: Objects in the bag don't interact with one another. For example, you can put a cask of gunpowder in first and then put in a lit torch without physics and chemistry producing a contents-destroying boom. You don't have to search for the items you want to withdraw. You just think about the item and you get it. Granted this is usually also hand-waved for normal non-magical backpacks, but it is undeniably convenient to never have to waste an action looking for what you need. Objects may not age or decay. This quality is usually up to the GM discretion. Some GMs rule that items in the bag are outside of time and space and some don't. It could be used as the world's best prison/entangle. Put an enemy in bag and voila problem solved.

I believe real-world military tactics should have already answered this question for you as part of training soldiers on "what to do when someone is shooting at you." I'm not a veteran myself so this information is purely based on what I could find from sites talking about firefights and tactics. In general, I believe you want to: Minimize the target area you present to attackers. Going prone can do that but is not a guarantee as the real-world data provided by @rravenwood indicates. In game terms, I think it is appropriate to double-dip and apply both range modifiers and hit-location modifiers from a high shot when the attacker is trying to hit a smaller target at range. Find soft cover that offers concealment from attackers. Ideally you'd want total concealment because your cover isn't going to offer any protection. In game terms, you can use the normal concealment rules or hit location rules, but any hits will do full damage. Find hard cover that offers protection from attackers. You get concealment and armor at the expense of mobility and possibly field of fire. Neutralize your attacker before they can neutralize you. The best defense is a good offense. FYI: Here's an interesting resource for firefight dynamics for military science fiction. This information makes me wonder why there aren't OCV penalties for run-and-gun: