Doctor Agenda

Re: Rifts HERO? I avoided that one on purpose, because it's complicated. If I were to write it up, I suppose it would be as a parasitical creature with a variety of Aids and Usable by Others effects it can use to help its host survive and an HKA for the tentacle bite. It's the latter that prompts me to make it a creature, it has an animal-grade intelligence and can attack on its own. The host would take it as a Follower, and gain DF: Chest Amalgamate and Phys Lim: Must feed Chest Amalgamate, and Phys Lim: Dies if Symbiote Dies. The critter will probably have something like 15 Hardened DEF Usable on Host, +3 DEX UoH, +3 CON UoH, +4 REC UoH, +1 SPD UoH, +2" Running Usable only on Host (can't use it, itself), 1-point LS vs Aging UoH, 1 point LS vs Sleep UoH, LS Immune to Disease UoH, LS Immune to Poison UoH, Aid END only for Host, and maybe Danger Sense although that could just be an effect of the beast alerting its host to normally-perceived danger. At any rate, if it has Danger Sense it doesn't need to be Usable on Host, it can just growl and writhe in warning. The CA will also have DEX equal to the natural DEX of its host +3 (it doesn't get the benefit of any DEX boost the host may get from another source), SPD 4, an appropriate HKA, and a big Phys Lim for being completely dependent on its host and unable to move on its own plus DF: Hideous Monster and maybe another small Phys Lim for being a haemophage. I hope this gives someone a head start on statting the thing out.

Re: Rifts HERO? I'm not the guru of this, but it depends on the symbiote. They tend to be complex, construction-wise. Some should be done as followers, others as equipment, others are just special effects for powers; like the Absurr Life Node (one of the simpler ones) from the Atlantis World Book: 2 points of LS vs Aging (triples the life span of the host), Danger Sense (Empathically alerts the host of danger), 25 DEF Hardened Armor (It is a megadamage creature and so is its host), 20 points of Mental Defense only vs. Emotion and Mind Control (impervious to Mind Control and Empathic Transmission), + 2 to Con Rolls (+20% to save vs. coma/death), +2 to Ego Rolls vs. Mental Powers (+2 save vs. Psionics), 10 points of PRE Defense (+5 save vs. Horror Factor), Aid to END (sudden burst of energy when tired), and +20 BOD (the life node can transfer it's own life force into the host when necessary). The host will have DF: Lump on neck and Phys Lim: Dies if life node dies.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Nope, not Sentenced to Prism or Piers Anthony. A little worse than those, if one of the few things I remember about it is spelling and grammar issues. I appreciate the effort. I hadn't even thought of it in years and years until my brother brought it up. I know the book he means but I read so damn many and the main thing it had going for it was a cool concept. Cool concept books are a dime a dozen (maybe I should check to see if there's a Dime a Dozen SF rack at the used book store). Maybe it had Gold or Golden in the title? I remember the protagonist would have been impressed with a much smaller STR boost than he got, like a 10% improvement would have been pretty good. Maybe more will surface, I suppose it's in my brain somewhere.

Re: Questions about Money Perk I like the chart. I think I could live on 25 million a year while spending the other 25 million to make the world a better place. If I scrimped a bit.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished Sidhe Devil, byAaron Allston. Could someone help me out remembering a novel I read in the seventies? It was a paperback, poorly edited, but it had an interesting concept of the protagonist having much of his tissue replaced with silicon-based analogues. I vaguely remember some kind of additional power-up later in the book. My brother wants to find it and I cannot remember any more details. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

Re: Questions about Money Perk Big money is really a powerful and versatile super power unto itself. It represents command of resources, the ability to make things happen, even change the course of history. It powers wars and finances reconstruction. Now I'm going to have to design a VPP based on being really rich.

Re: Questions about Money Perk Airline tickets, hotel rooms, bribes, it just makes a lot of things easier. At high levels you can finance teams, influence legislation, and explain how you can afford millions of dollars worth of gear.

Re: "Immortality Syndrome" From Champions Powers. This write-up would be kind of cool combined with Damage Reduction, Only vs. STN. That way you can stay conscious while taking 'fatal' wounds. Say your regular BOD is 15, but you can go to -65 BOD before you're really dead. At below -15 BOD, you start looking like you should be dead. Broken limbs, fatal gunshots, head half-burned off, but you're still coming!. On the original write-up, it always felt like regular resurrection plus ANOTHER form of simulated resurrection. So you only had to use the regular resurrection option if the simulated one (extra negative BOD and regeneration) failed. The advantage would be that the simulated version doesn't have to have a condition to prevent resurrection, the condition for that is being reduced to negative your BOD -50, only then do you have to worry about resurrection kicking in.

Re: "Normals" gaining superpowers: how would they change in terms of mentality? 23) Cure Disease and Injury of Others. Messiah Complex comes to mind. So does getting rich off of it.

Re: "Normals" gaining superpowers: how would they change in terms of mentality? Is curing disease already on there?

Re: "Normals" gaining superpowers: how would they change in terms of mentality? It's been very helpful to me, I'm running a game with a recent empowerment event, and I'm trying for psychologically realistic touches. I've done horrible, horrible things to the laws of physics; psychological verssimilitude is an important counterbalance. The lazy telekinetic, the voyeuristic telepath, and so on.

Re: Golden Hunter v6.1 Maybe something for detecting the Elder Worm?

Re: CHAMPIONS BEYOND -- What Do *You* Want To See? Gadroon=Reptoid?

Re: from little plot seeds, mighty games do grow: Share your ideas! Perhaps Stalker needs to continue to feed on the blood of super beings to maintain his new powers.

Re: Human Library Universal Scholar and Universal Scientist like in the Ultimate Skill are the same thing dmjelund is suggesting. I like that you're not jumping on the power pool first thing, I've always been bothered by using that mechanic for skills, it feels like cheating players who bought their character's skills the regular way. Now that I've dissed skill pools, I'll say that I think they ARE appropriate for simulating super skills like in Dark Champions, just not the skills the super skills are based on. Just my humble opinion. And there's nothing wrong with KS: Everything 30- and SC: All 30-, either.

Re: Kill, jail, or rehabilitate, what happens to your villains? Maybe it's the cynic in me, but in my supers games the last few years, if a super villain is at all manageable they get recruited by the government to work off their time in public service...often in an overseas warzone with special forces handlers.

Re: Campaign Setting: Final Incursion Like the name and effect! I'll make that part of the series of small, localized incursions so there will be plenty of horror to be found without the game necessarily becoming a monster hunter campaign...but it can if that's what the players want! I'm going to have 'the Twilight or Darkening' for the Space Opera incursion...it happens 'offscreen' but it's really the biggest incursion, so unlike the other effects, which are momentary, this one will last for 11 minutes. I've decided against Cre being hollow, but the vast caverns will be there instead of Earth and I'm sticking with the subterranean portals and other features. Thanks for the ideas, folks! I feel ready for tomorrow's game. Since this game will be following the players I don't know yet where it will focus, so I may bump this thread up again for more questions. In the meantime, any other ideas you want to share are more than welcome.

Re: The Big List of Champions Mutants (under construction) What about that kid at the back of the 4th Ed Mutants book? An advanced generation mutant with mental powers that Genocide was after. Matthew Brody or something like that, I think.

Re: Campaign Concept Source: "No Ordinary Family" No Ordinary Family came in very handy as an example of the kind of powers characters should have in my new Final Incursion game, which includes a world-wide origin event. It's a kind of wish-fulfillment thing, and the family getting powers related to their personal issues and compensating for areas they were weak in really helped my players (not long-time superhero gamers) 'get it'.

Re: Campaign Setting: Final Incursion Those ARE good! I would probably never have thought of flipping it over (continent at the North Pole, polar icecap at the South). I will definitely use a native American analogue, the planet should be mostly low-tech for that 'Sword and Planet' feel, although I'll probably have some brooding high tech intelligences lurking somewhere. Thanks for the detailed suggestions! If I make it hollow, maybe I'll have transplanted (or time-napped or conjured up) Native Americans be one of the dominant cultures on the inside. Maybe some Etruscans, Kushites, and Mongols too, with plenty of space between them. And Neanderthals. And dinosaurs. And a saurian race. Then it can be more alien on the outside; so if you come from underground it's a classic lost world but if you come from space it's an alien planet.

Re: Campaign Setting: Final Incursion I had a little more time to work on this than I anticipated, thanks to a cancellation, so the series is actually starting day after tomorrow. I've changed the First Incursion giant cavern to subterranean portals to a hollow planet so I can have whatever I want there and players won't necessarily know at first that they've left Earth. I'm using small, localized Incursions to cover anything I want to introduce, but also a big Incursion of Space Opera/Planetary Romance in case I decide to take the game into space. The interstellar Space Opera won't be immediately apparent and in fact may never come up. However, for planetary romance purposes this Incursion includes a counterpart to Earth in Earth's L-3 point (not a true counter-Earth in our exact same orbit but opposite the Sun). I know the L-3 point is sometimes visible but have no idea of the schedule. Anyone know when a mysterious new planet should show up on our telescopes? I'm also interested in suggestion for this planet: name, feel, civilization(s), inhabitants, creatures. Would it be too much to also make it the hollow planet that can be reached through the subterranean portals? Saturday will be largely character creation (125+125). I am anticipating a soldier with chi powers, a student with sonic powers, and a duplicator; a couple of players don't know what they want yet. I'll have a GMPC for a mouthpiece (100+100). This is going to be largely player-driven, what kind of characters they make and what they want to do will determine what kind of series it is.

Re: How does your Hero relax? Off Time Activities Samaritan is a bit ashamed of this, but he's in a Doors tribute band using his modest musical and shapeshifting abilities to pick up groupies with his imitation of the Lizard King. He's a former nerd living out an adolescent fantasy.

Can normal equipment that doesn't cost points be associated with a form? For instance, a character who is a barbarian by day that becomes a rogue by night because two people are timesharing a body: can they each have their own gear? I'm inclined to say yes, because I would probably allow them to have different clothes, etc. So whatever one had on them when they changed would disappear with the old form and whatever the new form was carrying last would appear with them when the change happens. I'm thinking this may be a matter of opinion/taste and special effects and the only real abuse I anticipate is the character being able to sneak contraband around by having it with his other form. Thoughts?

Re: Star Wars Hero Resources Cool, I hope to get to it this weekend.

Re: Star Wars Hero Resources Gracias. I think I'll take sysabend's 4th ed and the Centurion Eagle from the Spacer's Toolkit and see if I can cobble together a decent Millenium Falcon between them.