Doctor Agenda

Re: Succeeding The Blood I would buy a Champions Family/Champions Bloodline book. Just sayin'. The inheritability of Empyrean traits is so different from normal heredity that it seems it must have been designed to have the results that it does: .1% Empyrean, 99.9% gifted human. Could it skip a generation, so that two gifted humans, both with Empyrean parents, might have a .1% chance of having an Empyrean child? Could the design have failed one time (.0001%?) and resulted in something more like a 'half-Empyrean' that wouldn't show up on Empyrean scans and follow something closer to Mendelian heritability that would allow the formation of a super-powered bloodline with the Empyrean penchant for an individualized power-suite with lower minimum stats and fewer signature Empyrean abilities, probably growing weaker the more generations there are between the original Empyrean parent and a particular specimen of the bloodline? Now that I've thought of it (in a very long sentence), I think I would definitely try to talk the GM into letting me have a character with this origin next time I get to play in a CU game.

Re: Succeeding The Blood One of my players in a previous CU campaign was able to use Malvan Golden Hunter gear because he didn't have any worm DNA. We also wrote him up with high Mental and Power Defense against anything Elder Worm-related.

Re: Archfoes Thrash is a skaterboy with an adaptive physiology that makes him nigh invulnerable to whatever hurt him last. He uses his powers to pull really wicked stunts and his skateboard to fight crime. His motto is 'I take a thrashing and keep on bashing!'

Re: Succeeding The Blood My non-CU-verse is hidden race-driven. Various hidden enclaves of humans who once ruled the world with space god tech who got slapped down and forced into hiding. After tens of millenia the devices watching to keep them in their place are finally out of commission (thanks to tangling with the Gray mothership when it arrived in 1908). Normally a fit (thanks to the genetics council and 'power genes') human sub-race, some have powers from the 'rebirth chamber', either directly or by inheriting them from someone who has undergone the rebirth process (I know, a lot like the Terrigen mists, but I'm not proud). Since the thirties they've been sending agents and exiling troublemakers to the surface world. The world's greatest hero, The Hyperborean, is a Telosian (hidden race enclave under Mt. Shasta) whose tale of being rocketed from earth as an infant and returning millenia later to crash in the arctic is widely regarded as a fanciful fabrication. It is, but it's closer to the truth than most of the 'struck by lightning' and 'bit by a mutant' origins. Heroes and villains without powers of their own may have Telosian tech (or stuff from those secretive monks in Tibet who are always handing out rings of power and such). The hidden races aren't the only source of origins, but they're the main one. My game may be a bit more conspiratorial than most, but I think my players like the interconnectedness and layers of the setting. Most of the player characters don't really know what's going on yet, but I think the nature of the background seeps into play in subtle ways without me really trying.

Re: A Super powered Nation Though most of my characters would be against it because of the forced nature of the event, even if they otherwise thought it might be a good idea...the analogy could also be 'stopping an inner city riot long enough to give everyone highly marketable skills and a new car'. If the event only gave combat-oriented abilities and few people stopped for a minute to ask themselves 'what am I going to do with my life now that I have super powers?', it would be a disaster akin to dropping a nuke on the country. We don't know anything about the nature or distribution of powers granted, there seems to be an assumption that everyone will be bricks and blasters, what if there are just as many 'transform dirt into food' and 'calm people down' types? If the event incorporates the cliche' of powers having to do with the personality and innermost wishes of the person affected, there would be a LOT of people who just want the power to make the war stop or the power to feed their families.

Re: Knowledge-/ Skill-Absorber You know what would be simple, along the lines of what Pinecone suggested? Just keep some points in reserve and spend them on skills as you go, defined as skills you absorbed. If I were GM I would go along with that. You've just got a special effect for learning skills fast, just as legitimate as the 'oh, I already knew how to do that, it just never came up before' justification.

Re: Knowledge-/ Skill-Absorber Yeah, I think there's a problem with letting one form pay for all the multiforms without even a requirement to return to that form in order to change. It begs to have a 'pay for the multiform' form that you never use, it's just the token requirement to change forms whenever you want without really paying for it.

Re: Knowledge-/ Skill-Absorber Basically, you buy a bunch of Multiforms, each just like the base character, only with room for extra skills. If the GM allows, you define the forms as the character, only with different absorbed skills. Say, a 350-point main form with 70 points spent on having 16 350-point Multiforms. If that's not enough different forms to last you through the campaign, 5 XP will give you 32 alternates. Maybe you can get a limitation on the Multiform based on having to absorb the skills, but it would be hard to make something like that a meaningful limitation. You just run another form with the points you were spending on the VPP spent on whatever skills the character has absorbed. It's abusive in it's own way, but Fireg0lem is right, it solves your cost problem and it's legal.

Re: Knowledge-/ Skill-Absorber Too bad. There's a skill absorbing character in Vibora Bay, from Champions Universe: News of the World, written up like this: 40 Psychic Skill Mimicry: Variable Power Pool, 30 base + 15 control cost; Only For Skills Known By Someone Within 2” (-½), Cannot Keep A Slot Active For More Than 1 Hour After Leaving Target’s Presence (see text; -0) 33 Knowledge Absorption: Telepathy 10d6, Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +½), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½); Extra Time (Full Phase, -½), Limited Normal Range (2”; -½), Receive Only (-½), Does Not Provide Mental Awareness (-¼), Only To Absorb Facts Known By Target (-¼) Not cheap, though.

Re: Knowledge-/ Skill-Absorber And you would probably need Universal Translator and maybe Universal Scientist. Maybe you could structure it so you do 'super skills' through the pool, powers that simulate skills. Teleport with must be able to cross intervening space normally for Stealth, etc. For the knowledge, maybe a Detect for correct answers to questions might serve. If I were the GM, I would use a house rule that you can simulate any skill through a VPP for a flat cost of 5 points per point in the skill, so a 4 point skill or two 2-point skills can be simulated for 20 points in the VPP. Having to absorb the skill temporarily from others could be a limitation on the control cost. This is effectively a +4 'can use skill in a VPP advantage'. I think it adequately addresses most issues with putting various skills in a VPP, and if it doesn't, raise or lower the modifier value.

Re: A Super powered Nation Of course, the results would be plot-driven. Super-powered utopias can be cool, and whether they're reasonable in the setting depends on the details. The generals don't get better super powers, everyone around them just got 'more equal'. The randomly-distributed powers aren't optimized for combat (low Dex, low defense, etc.), so they have an incentive to use their powers commercially (human forklift, eyebeam welder, and the like). A lot of people get powers useful for developing the country, like weather and plant control. The country could wind up a not-so-hidden hidden land. And let's be honest: your typical poverty-stricken and war-torn African country is arguably already close enough to hell on earth that radical changes that would definitely be regrettable elsewhere might be an improvement. I can't think of any characters I run that would condone forcing powers on people against their will, though.

Re: Help with Vigilante Project Bronze Tiger, Nighthawk (the gritty one with the cool clockwork-looking goggles), Night Thrasher, and from TV Land: Mantis (or is it MANTIS)!

Re: Super Zeroes Studio Man: Can imitate the style of any musician, but is unable to perform anything original. Probably got his powers from a wish gone a little bit wrong. Never lacks for employment, though.

Re: New book purchases...and mini reviews... I have Algernon Files and you're spot on, both the good and the bad. Very creative but some of the builds are clunky and even characters you think are going to be low-powered are written up as at least 500-point characters.

Re: Knowledge-/ Skill-Absorber Is the pool just for knowledge skills? Maybe Universal Scholar with a limitation would be more elegant.

Re: Original Characters Love the name, Cassandra! I was expecting an oracle, but with so many multiforms, she must be full of surprises.

Re: Hawaii Hero The GM got extra work hours and stopped running. Shame, of everything he's ever run in the nearly 20 years I've known him this was the best and it didn't last long enough.

Re: Internal Computer Sure, it's all academic on the internet, but yeah, if I found hackers in my basement I have to admit I would find it very alarming.

Re: Internal Computer That's what I'm sayin'. The arrest/mortality rate among those 50,000 hackers will be sky-high. There's a reason why the best hackers put a joke on the Pentagon's computers instead of really screwing them over. I just don't think the 'menace of the basement hackers' is as great as it's being made-out to be.

Re: Hawaii Hero Ya learn somethin' new every day.

Re: Rifts HERO? Don't go overboard, I'm more interested in your take on the Walker's powers. Converting spells is a whole other project.

Re: Rifts HERO? How about a Ley Line Walker?

Re: Internal Computer So being hooked into a highly secure network is what makes them more vulnerable?

Re: Internal Computer No doubt. Next question is why would someone use this tech if 50 thousand basement hackers are going to use it to screw them over?

Re: Super Zeroes Are they the Innumerati because there are so many of them or because they can't do arithmetic?