Blue

Can't we get to a more life affirming argument? Like Jesus v. Superman? ("I've got you now, superman! I've... um... changed all your water into wine. There! That'll show you.") I may mock, but I actually like these sorts of things. The unfortunate part of this is that you can come up with a time when each one of them (Thor and Superman) did the impossible or was felled by the impossible, because they've each had hundreds of different writers with different takes on the character's level of ability. Does anyone remember the old Avengers issue where they fought a group of superheroes who were basically JLA knockoffs? (I want to say they had a snappy name like the Squadron Superme?) Was Thor part of that Avengers team? I'd like to remember what the take was of the writers in that one regarding their fight (although it would admittedly be very stilted toward Marvel).

Be sure to make Mechanon's head detachable. (Sorry, too much Mechanon thread for me!)

I recently saw several copies of Trail of the Gold Spike (for J.I.), but J.I. is less prolific.

Like there was any comparison

If I don't harass the GM then it just isn't an official game. Everybody has a GM that they refer to as "The Evil GM". He's the one that revels in your pain. He's fun to taunt. But the GM that we harass more is the one that's more easy-going. We have a long tradition of going around his adventures. It's not on purpose (usually). He sets up an encounter and we somehow find a way to circumvent it. "Running anytime soon?" "Why should I? You'll just go around my game anyway!"

Aha! I knew if I held out long enough someone else would make the Brians joke

Thank you Shrike. Your initials aren't KS for nothing.

So far... Uncle Slam - My Super Patriot character Dead Ringer - A guy who caused sonic damage when he laughed Nomad - A time traveler doomed to wander the ages Usurper - A doppleganger type of character Laser Lash - Okay, you had to see the character drawing to understand why the name was so cool Gridlock - Used entangles, Drains, and transformations to immobilize people

Oh sure, trademark it so I can't use it! That's pretty cool. Whatever we decide on, I'm trying to make it as rules friendly during the game as possible, even if it's calculation intensive now. With pools, there's always math; that's the nature of the mechanical beast. I'm just hoping to make it simple for the player to come up with his creations somewhat on-the-fly. Either way it's going to be interesting. I'm going to bring your suggestion to the table along wih the others. Thanks again for the help, one and all.

Robots aren't the only thing that he does though. If I envision the character correctly, think of Artemus Gordon in "Wild Wild West" and all of the odd inventions. One game he's got a suit of steam-powered armor, next scene he's got a big clockwork robot. That's why it kind of works as part of a pool. Here's what I'm likley going to propose to the player... Gadget Pool, changeable only between scenes. I'll only require a skill roll if I'm "rushing" him (Such as suddenly he gets a call that he's needed a mile off coast... He could try and manufacture a boat or diving bell, but he'd need a roll and there would be time and active point modifiers). Most of the things in the pool would be typical Foci, except for summoned creatures, which act independantly. Of course he'll likley want the Amicable advantage on any of those. So a guy with, say an 100pt gadget pool (Keep in mind this campaign is weighing in at only 300pts to start), might be able to buy himself a snazzy suit of steam-powered armor with a bit of strength and an attack of some kind, then he could spend a few points on other gadgets or build himself a small set of robots who would search and report back to him. And of course he could build build a few powers with "robot" special effects, such as an entangle that is basically a bunch of little toy robots clinging to his foe, or a "boom-bot", which would be a little robot that rolls up to his opponent and explodes. Only real adjusting I have to do for this is to wave the method of recouping his points. Am I being too generous or does this sound reasonable?

So what you are suggesting is that he should build his effect he wants from the pool, then just say the special effect is that he has a robot doing this thing. It works on some things, but the special effect seems like a real stretch on others. Anything that would require split attention, like telling two robots to take their stun-guns and guard to different ends of the corridor, would cause issues.

Oh, I got ya. I think it's a cool idea too, using the individual followers' VPP to customize them. Problems I notice with this are... --Robots are somewhat "disposable" as summoned creatures. However, as a Follower, that's quite a point investment you'd lose if the follwer got killed. The original character would still be around but greatly crippled by loss of a chunk of points. --They would be limited to the number of followers originally purchased, unless they spent points out of their individual VPPs to duplicate themselves, which to me is a reasonable way of doing it. So it's not so much a problem, I guess. Doing it as a follower changes the whole way you treat the subordinate creature. A robot that can be resummoned later is okay to sacrifice now. However, a robot that is, say 20pts of your character, is something you're unlikely to risk very much.

Thanks very much! I finally had some time to read through the Summon ability again. The Amicable advantages make sense. The only problem I had with this method is that you can only get rid of them through dispel or supress. So in order to simulate making a NEW buch of robots he would need a special power to deconstruct the old ones. While this is necessary to keep with the spirit of the mechanics of the Hero System, it doesn't make much logical sense in "special effects" to need a special ability to deconstruct them. I like the other idea (the VPP) but that will pretty much limit the number of robots (unless they buy duplication). Also, I think what he had in mind was using them as gadgets. So he might be building a weapon this scenario, next scenario he'd be building four robots that can put out fires, scenario after that he'd have one bigger robot that could do something else, then he'd have a suit of exoskeleton armor next time, etc.

It's one of those "What is the best way to do this" questions. I have a player who would like to use his power pool to build robots. I suspect, without researching, that this can be done with Summoning, but I'm open to suggestions. It's obviously too abusive to put the Perk "Followers" in a pool. So give me suggestions, if you've got 'em. Thanks.

Over the years the vast majority of characters have been based on something I came up with when drawing. I'd often have a costume before I even had powers or a name. While that's still the primary method, I find that occasionally I'm inspired by a miniature I happen across. An image of the character gets stuck in my head, I start thinking about what he would do in combat what's special about them then I make up a history. In other words I work backwards from about 80% of the people I know.

Re: Superheroes and the Law Admittedly a lot of this I haven't even taken into account, and likely won't until I have to. Do you allow telepathy as evidence - I imagine finding out information without permission is invasion of privacy. What if a person requests a telepath in court? - I think if the person had some kind of court approval I'd allow it, though those people would be hard to track down, being few and far between at this stage. What do you do with ultra-powerful paranormals - Ah, but they can be contained! My superprison is one of those lock-em up and forget about 'em places. Jailbreaks will be unlikely until far into the game. Anyone have any crazy off-the wall laws in their game? - I'm allowing heroes to maintain their privacy and "flaws" by requesting a closed court, the law already recognizing the necessity of superpowered individuals. Additionally, one of the things that might encourage heroes to work for the campaign's primary city is the fact that they can maintain an insurer to cover "accidents" during superpowered combat that might be caused during a fight. Mostly I want the players thinking about NOT performing reckless actions, so the threat of lawsuits is always there. On the other hand I want them to have a fallback in case of an honest mistake. Such is the peril of modern heroism!

I'll settle for some champions minis.

In my world, you get what you pay for. So if you've bought the ability to do continuing damage (possibly with gestures: must tug on line) then yes, you can do ongoing damage. If it's built as a grab and stretching, then instead you could use the STR involved to do "squeezing" damage each round unless the opponent uses his STR to break free like someone might from a normal grab...

Wish I could think of something that hasn't been done. That would mean I was ahead of the game! And that hasn't happened since 3e. Once the BBB came out and they had a lot of the psychic abilities covered and extra-dimensional travel, then there were ways to simulate time-travel, that was pretty much it. I'm currently working on a character who uses Psychometry (the ability to read psychic impressions from objects, in this case to get a visual image of what happened in a location), but I'm in the early stages...mostly writing background. If I can't do the power in a way I like then I may give writing a new power a try. Heck, I may write a new one anyway just to have done it once. (Sidebar: Yay! Happy 300th Post! I'm finally a superhero rather than a hero)

I let foci break all the time. That's the point of making it a focus. But I don't have the villain always go after to focus because that's bad form in game purposes. Mind you, if you are playing "The Shooter" and he has one big gun he carries around and is always changing the abilities of it by twisting the little dial on it, then obviously every villain on earth is going to take about 1 phase to figure out how to take this guy out of the fight. The heroes would do the very same to the villian, if he were so predisposed to a single focus. As for unbrekable, someone above said that it's "impossible" to have something unbreakable. I would contend that it's impossible to have a mystical hammer or gateway to another dimension. In comic terms it should absolutely possible for something to be eternal in a game. And with Unbreakable items sometimes folks get too hung up on rules. I generally follow the mechanics of the book as far as "interrupting" the abilities of unbreakable foci, because that's all part of making it a focus. And you should get the added advantage of having your item's powers be more resistant to direct attack than those powers would be if they were in you. Accordingly, regardless of how unbreakable foci work in the book, here's how I've always done it (because it pleased me and my players): Unbreakable items in my game have to be unique. There are no "unbreakable laser pistols" and other mundane tech. There has to be a reasoning as to why it's unique and a logic as to how it can be restored to working order. And unbreakable for our purposes has always mean that it's powers can be interrupted by whatever means (Including the dispels and such listed in the post that started the thread). What's more, there's typically a way to restore seemingly permanent damage to an unbreakable item. Especially the more mystical ones. I mean, Mjolnir (sp?) should certainly be unbreakable. An unique item (Let's say... Excalibur) cannot be broken seemingly permanently damaged except by "plot device" of the GM. In other words, if it makes great drama and forces the next part of the story, I may allow the horrendous occurance to destroy it (Say by allowing anger to overtake you and trying to kill the pure-of-heart Lancelot with Excalibur). It can accordingly be restored by virtue of repentance and the acceptance of said repentance by the lady of the lake. By the same token, if it's better drama for the item to survive the impossible that's likely to happen too (Like having Excalibur being at ground zero of a nuclear blast. It would be pretty dramatic to reach ground zero, where the hero had sacrificed himself for the world, and find the sword in tact and plunged into the earth at the scene).

Wow! I read the entire thread and my brain didn't melt. I am a gaming geek! Pretty interesting stuff. Not sure I'll need it in the short-term, but I'll print and file it away just in case.

As far as the posting thing goes, I know these boards only allow certain extensions on posted attachments. I tried to post a 1 page PDF one time and it told me it was an illegal attachment. JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, and typically any file in a ZIP file are okay to post. As far as quality goes, GIFs of course are only 256 colors or less, so if you have a lot of color depth you probably don't want this, though it's fine for Grayscale. JPG has a higher color range and nearly every photoediting program allows you to adjust compression so you can make it really small with low quality or bigger with better quality. I've never been fond of TIF files, because they never seem to be compressed enough for my storage tastes. I'm sure the ARTISTS can give you better info. I'm not an artist, I just draw. (There's a difference)

Let's face it, you don't have to be bright or articulate to perform Seduction if you have a great body. In those cases all you have to do is be there! So to make COM more useful, I allow my players to use COM as the basis for certain PRE based skills, as long as they declare it at the time they are building the character. That way Hootie McBoob and her enormous rack will still be easily scared off by mechanon and yet all she has to do is arch her back and every guy in the room will be buying her drinks. I also allow this for Persuasion and a few other things. The rolls of course are relative to your looks in that case, so there are instances where basing your roll on COM will hurt you. Such as convincing the Allied Federation of Alien Races (AFAR) that you come in peace would work better with PRE instead of COM.

I didn't realize WebRPG had gone Pay! That's how long it's been since I used it. Looking at OpenRPG's Download section they list an OS X version. Haven't tried the product, though the screenshots are nice.

I tend to think you are best served by making it area effect - straight line of hexes. An entire hex is plenty wide.