Great Beyond

Re: WWYCD?: The blatant-ening. Well, poor old Great Beyond couldnt do much, but Natasha on the other hand could pown the demon with ease. While pondering exactly what to do against the monster, a Natasha From The Future would arrive and give her a Big F'in Gun. After delivering the mortal blow to the demon, she would get out of the desert, put together a BFG capable of totaly atomizing said demon, get into her time traveling car, jump back in time to just before the encounter, and give her younger self the Demon Busting Cannon. Oh, and she drops off enough food and water for all parties concerned. Hey, if the GM can shamlessly railroad characters like this, then I have no problem violating time streams to deliver a Deus ex machina. ***EDIT*** And, after realizing the extent of the GM railroading, Natasha would spend some time researching other dimensions and would head over to GB's universe as soon as she could to deliver another Demon Busting BFG. Problem solved there, too!

Re: GMs: Funniest Character Sheet Mistakes You've Seen. It wasn't a typo, but a key component to the character concept that was left off the sheet until it was really important. It wasn't me, but one player was running a reformed thief who would go out and dabble in his former hobby just to stay sharp (nothing major - get into a safe and take one dollar or something like that). Well, one day while out on one of these side trips, suddenly EVERYTHING went wrong and he had to vacate quick. As the police closed in, he found himself having to go up the side of a building. The GM said "Ok, roll your climbing", and the player looked over the sheet, and double checked it. The second story cat burglar had somehow neglected to take climbing! Whoops. He did eventually get away, but we all laughed and laughed at him for that one. (The climbing was bought promptly at the end of that session).

Re: WWYD - Marvel's Civil War *Shrug* I haven't been turned off by the story arc as some of you have. Yeah its a bit heavy handed, but it doesn't offend me. That said. . . *Great Beyond - Since she's got itchy feet and likes to travel, she would use this opportunity to see the world until things settled down. Travel broadens the mind and all. * Natasha - She would probably be pro-reg, but only because she's already got a public ID and is very well known around her home city. And since Extremely Weird Things will continue to fall out of the sky into her lap regardless if she's reged or not, she might as well get on the law's good graces, Until. . . . . Once the Pro Reg side started getting heavy handed, she'd have to rethink her position REAL hard. If she caught wind of that Negative Zone prison, it might be time to switch sides - but first, she'd do some damage along the way. If possible, work into a position of trust in and around the prison (and being the super genius she is, that may not be all that hard). When she's got a moment of opportunity: JAILBREAK! While she's probably not quite as smart as Reed, she's far more worldly and devious. He - from what I've read - is pretty incapable of thinking outside the box, so someone who thinks outside, around, over and under the box should be able to get everyone out (or at least open the doors to the jail and let the prisoners help themselves from there). Hey - if you're going to go out, go out BIG!

Re: Champions Christmas Adventure Seeds! I know it's not quite the same thing, but along the lines of the first post and Christmas trees coming to life, last years Doctor Who special might be worth an idea or two. The Christmas Invasion had aliens who disguised themselves as bands of Santas to blend in, so they could get close to a freshly regenerated Doctor and capture him. They also had a remote controled christmas tree that spun like a top at high speeds that they also used as a weapon (think the Tazmainain Devil and you've got the right idea). So perhaps bands of alien/robotic/whatever santas at the shopping malls, bell ringers at all the department stores - all laying in wait for some kind of event (the Chosen One arriving to sit on one of the santa's laps?) to spring their trap? The various mechinations could include: * The spinning tree of death * Giant snowmen decorations come to life and smashing through the mall. * Entangling Christmas lights and wreaths. * Thrown lumps of coal as a missle attack * Tinsel gun for a flash perhaps? And think of the trauma all the kids at the mall will have seeing your hero beating up Santa? Fun times afterwards.

Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Ok, here's some links to a quickie geocities site I whipped up: * Great Beyond (Level 50 Ice/Fire Blaster) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/great-beyond.html * Scarlet Arrow (level 44 Trick Arrow/Arrow Defender) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/scarlet-arrow.html * Thornbloom (Level 29 Plant/Thorn Dominator) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/thornbloom.htm * One-Hit Wonder (Level 33 MA/Reflex scrapper) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/onehitwonder.htm Of the bunch, One Hit is probably the most loose interpertation of the CoH mechanics. She does a whole lot more (and moves a WHOLE lot faster) than the digital version can do. Since I'm actually playing the pen and paper version of GB, there's also all kinds of abilities and skills that the digital version doesnt have. There's been a natural evolution from where she started out. Thorny and Scarlet, on the other hand, are pretty accurate to their digital versions.

Re: Conversions...City of heroes?

Re: Need an organization name Well, if its for a book, then suggesting Torchwood is right out. Well, my game, I've used The Western Washington Institute for Very Advanced Science (That's the localized branch. Drop the Washington part for the national headquarters, of course.)

Re: What Would Your Character Wear? The Costume Party! Last Halloween Great Beyond, as a civilian went as one of her other teammates (which got a bit weird when everyone in the city got hit with the "Become what you dressed as" ray). Natasha goes traditional - Zorro, The Shadow and your other pulp novel heros. That sort of thing.

Re: Wwycd: Doom!!!! I'm not completly sure on the good Doctor's write up - beyond him being the Uberbad guy like Lord Aracnos, Vader or Dr Doom - so I'm firing in the dark on power levels. But anything that he cant deal with will probably be SO far beyond both Natasha and GB's ability to handle that they might as well not get out of bed. The only trick I could think of would be 'Tasha using her car to jump back in time before the incident and stop the experment from happening - but that'd be an even bigger problem in the long run than the portal to hell. Even worse is that if time and space didnt implode in a paradox, odds are good that the Doctor will start up research all over again later on. We're back to square one. So yeah, I'm with the "Whoops - spilled my drink" team and heading out the back.

Re: WWYCD: <Your character>: The Clone Saga!! Natasha would roll her eyes and go "Great, another one!" She's an old hand at having duplicates around. The time that her home dimension was acting as a "magnet" for all the other world's Natasha's, bringing them over whenever they made a time/space hop. By the end of the day, when they sorted out what the hell was going on, there were several hundred of her running around town. It took about a week to get everyone home (and some didn't want to or couldn't go home). Of course there's been many a time where Future Natasha dropped in unexpectedly on Present Natasha for one reason or another. So no, it'd be just one more her running around town. Great Beyond would probably be more freaked out - she's not run into this sort of thing before. Since she's not a killer, she cant "whoops - tripped on the life support plug", and she'd feel bad about leaving v2.0 locked up in a tube for the rest of her life. She'd probably defrost her, and since GB's natural inclination, free of superheroing and responsibility, would be to travel and see the world - she could wander away, enjoy the big wide world and stay out of 1.0's way.

Re: A multipower question for you all. This might be the way to go. I dont mind taking the same modifiers as if I were just "standing there" as it were. I'll have to see if the GM agrees. That or perhaps it might be easier and cheaper to just buy one lone inch, seperate from every other power - call that my "keeps me hovering" power while I use the pool to snuff out fires or whathave you. Either that or going Linked like Bloodstone suggested. Either way, I'll have to talk to the Powers That Be and see if they have any idea. But this gives me a starting point at least.

Re: Macroverse and Microverse?

So I was thinking of playing around with putting GB's current flight (pretty basic - 32 inches of flight, 0 end and a couple of non combat multipliers) into a power pool and perhaps coming up with a couple of flight gimmicks - stuff like flying around in a circle really fast to snuff out fires (simple - a suppress fire powers). The problem I run into is - well, I'd have to move the pool points from fly to the suppress. Suddenly GB is plunging from the sky as she's trying to put out the fire. Now understanding that each GM is different, can I justify the special effect of continuing to fly even though the actual fight power has no points in it. Of course if I wanted to move again, I'd of course have to shift the points back. Or is that being unreasonable, and I need to set up a secondary pool for all the extra tricks and gimmicks that I can use while the fly continues running?

Re: All the superhero PCs I've ever played Forgive the necromancy, but this looked too fun to pass up I've only had three superheroes in my long gaming career - but a couple of them had several versions when we rebooted the game from time to time. My very first one was Newton Weyrick, created somewhere around '89-'90 ish. He was a pretty basic character - a tanker with some flight (and a fear of heights - which was just fun). That game lasted for a year or two until it fell apart (to my regret, it was partiality due to my fault - I was bitter that the Star Wars had imploded so abruptly and replaced). A couple of years later, as the players cycled out, we tried again. It was a cool enough concept and I was over the chip on my shoulder, so I recreated him again - this time with a car that could travel time and space (A flux capacitor, but in a car with style like an Aston Martin DB5). He was considerably less a jerk and more flaky impulsive eccentric with an irresponsible streak a mile wide. When it came time to wind down that game, we went with a third "newtonverse", but this time we shifted him and his team forward 20 or so years, and I played his daughter - Natasha. She was a Tanker also, but she was a super genius who loved to tinker with cars and electronics and other Mad Scientist things. She also had about 100 points of shrinking/growing (and some various support powers and skills). She had a kicking electric train set, a full on town she built while an inch tall. The problem that I had - while I enjoyed the conventions and had read comics for years, I was really a one trick pony. I was never able to come up with anything that really satisfied me as a concept - until I played City of Heroes. That's where my third hero character comes from Great Beyond is a second generation hero, inheriting the name and look from her golden age hero father after he died (of old age, you looking for sinister subplot types - sheesh). She's a an ice blaster with a couple of fire attacks and flight, who also deals with arcane and mystic lore. Of course the problem is - I have too many character ideas now left unplayed! Scarlet Arrow (an Olympic caliber archer), Chill Out Woman (the manifestation of a winter Goddess), One Hit Wonder (a Kung Fu Speedsteer) . . . .

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith Hey Nexus, Not to draw you back into the thread for more arguing ("I'm sorry, but this is abuse. You want room 12A, just along the corridor.") - how did the players make the jump to the conculsion that the biosphere was wonky? If there was no evidence, that implies that there's no records or research or live witnesses to provide exposition. Basicily I'd like to spring this on my players someday, and would love more notes on how things went down with you.

Re: WWYCD: A Bomb for Two Cities Great Beyond has no skills at disarming bombs aside from what she's seen in movies - so aside from blasting it with ice and hoping that's enough to contain the blast, it's "Say hello to your new mutations" day in Seattle and New York. Natasha has a bit more virsatility to her. She could easily use her 30 point gadet pool to build remote control arms, to disarm the Seattle bomb without getting contaminated. Then it's a hop in her time traveling 57 Chevy, a quick jaunt back a week, and a casual drive across country to New York. She and her robot arms woud arrive and time it so the bomb was disarmed just after she disarmed the first one, thereby avoiding any potential paradoxes in the process. Ta-dah! The day is saved!

Re: Macroverse and Microverse? Here's a counter I thought of on the drive hom - me thinking in GM mode *puts on GM's hat* Would the tiny character take incidental damage from other attacks. For example - the shrunk character is punching the target in the eye. The target fires his laser beam eye attack at a secondary target (not at the tiny character) - since the tiny character is essentialy standing in the barrel of the gun as it fires, would it be reasonable to give them a heaping portion of damage too? Punching someone from inside is a huge advantage, but so would getting two attacks for the price of one (the damage against the intended secondary target, plus the damage against the shrunk character standing in the line of fire)

Re: WWYCD: Earth: Battleground Zero All of my characters - the same response, getting the innocents out of the line of fire is A1 priority, then getting the cops to hold off attacking. Once all the squishies are out of danger, then proper attention could be paid to the combatants. Great Beyond would probably go with her top shelf attack: Blizzard, a 12 phase 12D Area Effect EB with all kinds of armor piercings and double knockback (or in this case, knock down) to put the kibosh on the fight. Hopefuly this would be enough to knock the wind out of their sails (cause it'll almost certanly knock her out of the fight for sure). If she has anything left and they start beaming out - throw a couple of entangles out and hope that the teleport system is gestures based. Hopefuly between the blizzard and the entangles, they'd have someone to talk to after the fight and find out what the hell is going on. Natasha would be must more stright forward - as the troops begin teleporting out, she'd shrink to super tiny and hitch a ride with one of them to wherever the hell they were going. Once back at headquarters, she turns it off and contiunes the beatings until someone gives her an answer to what the hell is going on. Where to go from there of course depends on whats going on.

Re: Macroverse and Microverse? *performs thread necromancy ritual* "Rise! Rise from your grave!" So I was checking out some of the powers in the Ultimate Metamorph ( a wealth of ideas beyond big/little powers) and something occurred to me - The Microcombat (on page 156) and the Internal Agony attacks on 155, well they seem kind of unbalancing. What's to keep a shrunken character from setting up shop inside someone's brain and spend all day blasting away? How does the target return fire (putting aside the problems of hitting something with that kind of DCV bonus). Doesn't seem fair if the target can't fight back. Along that lines - would the tiny character have to roll to hit the target? It would seem that it would be almost impossible to miss if you were in the target's brain. Like I said - conceptually cool, but I can't quite wrap my brain around the mechanics.

Re: Give me your ice power ideas! Oooh, I like some of those. Why I didnt think of some kind of Numbness NND attack, I'll never know. Consider that stolen! I dont have my book with me, so I can't check the mechanics - but what would you guys consider a transform: water into ice would be? Major? Minor? Cosmetic? Since she'd be doing something that occurs naturaly in real life - just on a vastly accelerated scale - I'd argue minor or even perhaps cosmetic. But I want to make sure I've got enough firepower on my side when the Giant Killer Tsunami is threatening to wipe out New York.

So I was toying with future powers for Great Beyond, pondering other cool uses of someone who produced ice on demand. So far she has: * A straight up ice blast (a 12D EB) - lob a chunk of snow and ice at the bad guys. * A cone area effect artic breeze (a 6D EB) - a bunch of chilling wind * The Quick Freeze (8D entangle) - locks up bad guys in a big block of ice * Blizzard (a mad wicked 10 AE blast with all kind of knock back, armor piercing, lasting for several continuous rounds - all with a HUGE endurance drain and a spotty activation) I was thinking of: * Change Environment: Sheet of ice - a large patch of ice that makes people flop about and the like. * Transform: Water into ice - put your finger in a lake on a hot summer day and POOF instant ice skating and that sort of thing. * Ice Pole (AKA stretching) - People trapped in a 3rd story burning building? No problem - throw out the ice pole and let them slide to safety! . . . .But I haven't worked out any of the mechanics for the above yet. I was wondering if anyone else had worked out ice based characters and had ideas for cool powers (pun intended) that I could shamelessly steal. (Addendum - in addition to being an ice elemental mage, she also does fire. The only two shticks she has is a fire sword attack, and an area effect around her as a fire sword sweep, so she doesn't do it a lot. Since she can do the fire, if someone has a great "You need to do this" fire power, add it into the pile! I'll take ideas from either side)

Re: WWYCD: Whoa! Ninjas! Stage one is easy for both Natasha and Great Beyond: Kick major Ninja booty! GB would probably be more analytical about it, where Natasha would just happily jump from one pack (Gaggle? Flock) of Ninja to the next all night long. GB would be better at crowd control, she's got pretty good entangles at her disposal. GB cant understand, but Natasha has a universal translator built into her 57 Chevy, so she'd figure out toot sweet that the Ninja were talking jibba jabba. GB has a pretty good detect magic in her bag of tricks, so figuring out that there's a mastermind behind matters would be pretty easy. She's also had a long history with the local Chinese supervillian mafia in town (who probably wouldn't be too happy with the goings on), who would most likely set aside their differences to collaborate on sussing out the mastermind behind the attack. Natasha, on the other hand - she's not the investigative type, but she does have experience with temporal and spatial physics that one of her high tech time toys might eventually ping on the Ninja. From there, it's a simple matter of following one of the boys back to their lair. Eventually, the luster wears off even beating up ninja, so Natasha would just work her way to the head of the class for some Mastermind whopping. If the smoke bombs/flash grenades/hide/teleport/ninja bag o' tricks proved to be too troublesome, she'd just grow really big and use her Area Effect: Foot to just smush the whole damn place. GB would probably be more indirect - using stealth of her own to get nice and close to The Big Boss and freeze him solid before the psudo-ninja knew what was up. Fortunately neither of them have more than a handful of points in Martial Maneuvers, so none of them would be effected (a good thing, considering Natasha's oh - how shall we say, ego of a small child or underdeveloped sponge). Afterwards for the clean up - GB would turn the remaining Ninja over to Portal Corp. Since they're the extra-dimensional experts, it's probably be their jurisdiction to return folks to their right time and place. Poor old Natasha however would probably be stuck doing more hours of her community service for the Time Cops (she had a couple of . . . temporal indiscretions) and they'd make her put all the ninja back by hand.

Re: Night of the Living Dead Hero Plot Ideas I've always wanted to do something like this. The kicker? I'd tell them "Build a modern day character, X number of points. Anything you want" (screening out the super ninja and stuff, of course). Dont let on that it's a Zombie attack or anything until . . . strange things start happening. Then spring it on them and watch the fun.

Re: A couple of flying manuver/power questions for you guys Well, the need hasnt come up yet while I was playing (just once, when I was GMing and GB was hanging around helping out on a disaster - so it was purely for dramatic purposes only), but I dont think we'll be to strict with the "What would happen in reality" - beyond complications like accidently pulling off a wing, making things even worse (because making things worse is always more fun when you finally sort it out in the end). So that probably wont be a concern. *crosses fingers*

Ok, folks - the Western Washington Institute for Very Science is going to have a technology open house, where the R&D boys get to show off their latest and greatest toys to the public (and get conveniently heisted by supervillains, but that's neither here nor there), You know - rocket packs, flying cars, shrink ray guns - all your Flash Gordon-ish shiny toys that a comic book think-tank with an unlimited research budget would be able to come up with. Your task - throw out some ideas. You don't have to stat them or anything, just brainstorm some cool high tech gear that sounds neat on paper. My (very) short list thusfar: * Advanced VR suite (What does that mean? Who knows) * Digital Transmat System (a transporter) * The Infanto Ray (instant baby, just add laser!) * Rocket flight packs * A cryogenic Suspension unit * Bioholographic med-tech scanners (Again - who knows what it does, but it sounds cool) * A shrink Ray gun (pity they never built a Grow Ray gun to go along with it)