Gigakaiju

Originally posted by D-Man

I think you should look up the rules for Desolidification as a form of invulnerability in Fred. Its essentially a -1 lim on the deso and it suggests you needn't by Affects Physical World for your other powers because it doesn't allow you to walk through walls or ignore damage from attacks without the correct SFX.

 

Using this method Invulnerability to fire would cost you 20 points.

i'd imagine that most people would also want to make it 0 END and Persistent.. i'd tend to disallow buying it with Always On, as the circumstances that would make being unable to be affected by fire a limitation would be uncommon at best. OTOH, if the invulnerability is a mystic or psychic ability that you have to focus on, having it cost END makes sense. As would limitations like Concentration or Gestures. (To ward off or part the fire.)

-m[arcuS]

Though it's not in production yet, Plustech has developed a multilegged walking forestry mech for low-impact logging operations or use on steep terrain. There's even some videos of it in action at http://www.plustech.fi/Walking1.html . Shouldn't be too hard to write it up as a vehicle. With another 19 centuries or so of development i can readily imagine a top speed that's greater than a few miles an hour.

-m[arcuS]

Re: Re: Re: Secret old fart club

Originally posted by lemming

I just sent the templates off to Ben, so we can hope to see them in Free Stuff soon.

That would be interesting, though i think i still have the original sheets in my Champions box set. The box is mostly made of duct tape at this point, but the sheets are still in fairly good condition. Still, it will save me the work of scanning 'em myself. (Not to mention locating the box.)

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I go strictly by special effect. A phaser blast is easy to spot. A rifle bullet from 600 meters away (Which is not considered a long sniper shot.) would be difficult to spot, and it would nearly impossible to spot the shooter unless he's out in the open and moving. On the other hand, the sniper at 600 meters probably can't see where his shot hit, and his bullets can easily be deflected by winds or characters with appropriate Missile Deflection. Not so with a laser for the most part.

 

i take that you still mean phaser when you say laser, since lasers can be tuned to non-visible frequencies (and are nearly invisible without a lot of dust/reflective particles in any event) and i've generally imagined phasers as being more along the line of charged particle streams. Actually, IIRC ultraviolet is the optimal part of the spectrum against soft targets for a laser since it instantly converts the water in the target at the point of contact into steam. Steam explosions tend to negate the usual self-cauterizing wound effect. Still, extremely high energy lasers do tend to excite the air they pass through creating a brief flash and rather loud crack along the beam path. OTOH, if you're using conventional comic book/science fantasy physics laser beams travel much slower than ordinary light (slow enough to be dodged, even) and emit their own light as they travel.

 

Same with hand to hand attacks. That Light Saberâ„¢ will slice through a bulkhead, but don't expect to do that with your trusty katana even though both theoretically do the same damage. But it will be bright and loud compared to the steel blade.

i'd require that the light saber be penetrating before allowing it to slice through a bulkhead any more readily than an equivalently lethal katana. How many times in movies and video games have you seen katanas and the like shear through foot-thick trees and stone columns?

As far as stealthy use of powers though, i like the -1 per 5 active points system for visible powers. i'd probably modify this penalty somewhat based on special effect as well.

Originally posted by Herolover

I understand the idea of of a "meta-setting," but I hate it. Somethings just don't fit. This is the one area that I feel DOJ really didn't hit the ball.

 

That said, I love the idea that cybernetics cause cancer. Works for me.

It's rare that a science fiction setting assumes that technology less effective than in the real world. That, or the medical community has been hiding the side-effects of current implant technology from us. After all, there are (conservatively speaking) tens of thousands of people out there with pacemakers, artificial joints, cochlinear implants, skeletal reinforcements/repairs, and other assorted types of implanted technology who are overdue for some nasty cancers by now. A number of them are friends or relatives of friends of mine, so it's going to be hard to break the news to them. i tend to go with the presumption that most advanced cybernetics are nearly imperceptible to casual scrutiny and are only employed when certain types of augmentation are desired that can't be achieved using less maintenance intensive organics. Man-machine interfaces, certain types of sensory agmentation and similar enhancements would be likely candidates. Of course it's not hard to imagine that installation/maintenance costs and social pressures would discourage obvious or excessive cybernetics.

On a related note, wired.com recently had some interesting articles on recent advances in the area of vision replacement/prosthesis.

-m[arcuS]