Victim

Re: You know your PCs have an Image Problem if...

lol, reminds me of the Cmapions of Vancouver game where I was playing Orion, a flying mystical Brick, who had been very seriously hit by Mental Illusions....

 

I swear I was attacking Scorpio, but the rest of the group saw me do a full move through on a News Helicopter... talk about bad press!!!

Well, if that was the only news crew in the area...

Re: Battlesuits: Too efficient and flexible?

I can never make a battlesuit I like.

While points savings are significant and the sfx is broad enough to allow many things, the sfx also demands many things as well. After a bunch of points of enhanced senses, life supports, and of course the skills needed to have the suit in the first place, the battlesuit isn't really getting any more bang for their buck than other characters. Since the battlesuit's powers are designed not bestowed, there's really no excuse for not having some of these powers. It's a huge point sink. Also, many battlesuit powers (armor, lifesupport, senses) are framework unfriendly.

Re: 10 seconds of Godlike knowledge...

So him getting more info on different possible futures would be more of a matter of perception than speed?

Re: How can Superheroes be deputized?

I'd think that the 8th Amendment would only cover sentencing, and not the means used to capture people so they can be tried. Otherwise you have the strange situation that the state is inflicting punishment upon people that haven't been tried yet. But I'm not a lawyer.

Mental powers might also be prohibted on the grounds that they result in someone bearing witness against themself.

Re: movies/t.v. vs comic books

Absolutely. The artificial web shooters are very cool, and allow IMO for a lot more interesting options and story elements, as well as being an obvious showcase for Peter's scientific talents. And it's such a great design.

And that's the problem. While Peter is a smart guy, having a youngster suddenly bust out the formula for an awesome adhesive and a launcher for it is a bit implausible for someone whose powers don't include super INT.

Re: Ethics for mentalists

Part of the disconnect here is that the attack that does 10 to 15 STUN generally costs about 50 or 60 points' date=' and would do a lot more harm to a Normal. Many Supers are as vulnerable to Mind Control as Joe Sixpack.[/quote']

 

Why is that a given?

 

Most characters buy extra PD and ED along with some resistant defenses even if they aren't supposed to be super tough. In fact, the guidelines basically tell people to do that, so characters aren't taking 42 Stun shots with 4 PD. In other words, would assuming that characters have some extra level of special defenses like they do for normal attacks allow for a recalibration of Mind Control and similar powers so that they can mess with normals easily but be neither weak nor overpowering in super combat?

Re: Ethics for mentalists

 

Personally, I would say that as a general rule mental powers can be employed ethically if they bring about either as much harm or less, or as much good or mer, than conventional responces. If a guy pulls a gun on you, and you knock him cold with an Ego Attack, that's doing less harm than a normal attack. It's acceptable. On the other side, someone has a number of purely psychological problem. You use Mental Transform as a form of super-therapy. This does at least as much good as conventional therapy. This is acceptable. A guy uses Mind Control to get a girl into his bed when she would otherwise have no interest in him? Unless (in Champions terms) he gets the +20 for "think it was your own idea," he's just done her a considerable harm, and least equivalent to getting her roaring drenk for the same purpose. Not acceptable. If he does get the +20, it's more like being super-persuasive - but it's still pretty tacky.

 

Oh, and I don't see any real need for special ethical considerations on the use of ultra-high PRE or EGO.

I don't see how getting the +20 makes Mind Control any more acceptable. Then you're only conditioning the subject to accept and rationalize your control. It's like saying kidnapping is more acceptable if the victims suffer the Stockholm Syndrome.

Re: WWYCD: A Brief Warning

Laura would find the ability to track her past much more useful than the message; she was in a coma a while and is immune to normal divinations so figuring out what happened would be a bit difficult without. She'd view using the message as the equivalent to attempting suicide; if it worked, it'd destroy her current self. A paranoid ("uses prudent self defense measures") archmage with ambitions of immortality wouldn't much appreciate something that might destroy her. In fact, this knowledge could have been put in her path as some kind of trap to get her to destroy herself. Better do something about that...

Frostflame would attempt to send herself a warning to prevent her boyfriend's crippling climbing accident. In classic fashion, her warning would might cause the accident - she makes worried comments or shows extra care with his care, he resents her nagging or insinuation that he can't take of himself and then pushes himself to show her (and himself) that he's good enough. Disaster follows. Alternatively, she might disregard the message as a stupid worry and then feel guilty afterwards. If the message did change the past, it'd likely cause their relationship to be stillborn.

Komorak is already trying to prevent a prophecy that has the world being destroyed. The possibilities that the prophecy is of the self fulfilling variety or that it's some kind of trap already give him a headache. Adding this message won't help any. It might be the one thing that tips the scales in their favor, allowing a second chance at saving the world so to speak. It might also serve the enemies' plan in some way, weakening the time stream or something. He's already altered the past on at least one adventure, so no great worry on that account.

Re: I could watch him get slapped around all day

The thing about Wolverine is that it's okay if he gets slapped around. The more powerful his regeneration, the more you can do to him. No need to worry about "friendly fire" either.

Jack from Lost really pisses me off. If I read more comics, I could hate people from that medium too. But from what I've read on boards, the Authority could use a good smackdown.

Re: Senses Targetting and Nontargetting

I'd just like to throw this in the ring: owls have targetting hearing. In fiction' date=' I've seen targetting hearing on Agent Sands from "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" and on the younger girl from the anime series "Noir". There is definitely precedent.[/quote']

 

You could also argue that some of those characters just accepted the CV penalties for shooting with a non targeting sense, but were skilled enough to hit anyway. I think Combat Sense can also help there. Of course, IIRC, targeting on hearing would be cheaper than a good level of combat sense.

Re: How to have long combats

Yep. That's why I said "or halving a normal's."

I have vision problems. And I'm illiterate.

Re: How to have long combats

This brings up an interesting idea...

 

I've experimented at times with trying to keep the SPDs lower in a superheroic game, specifically because it leads to combats lasting more Turns. However, the issue I had in doing so was that it compressed the difference between supers and normals too much; supers that should clearly be much better than normals end up only slightly better than normals.

 

But what if you applied some kind of "scale" approach to it, doubling a super's SPD (or halving a normal's) when comparing them to others not of their own kind? So for example, two supers might be SPD 3 or 4 when fighting each other, but if they're facing normal thugs or something, they act as SPD 6 or 8. This would let super-battles enjoy the benefits of lower SPDs, without dragging supers down to the same SPDs as normals...

Or you just make the speed for normal combatants 1-2 instead of 3-4.

I think using more incapacitating effects lends itself to certain tactical abuses. Instead of keeping the target out of the fight for a few phases, they can keep the target out of the fight long enough for a group to line up nasty attacks that pound the poor guy into GM's option.

Re: SPD Standards

I've never been sure what to think of the SPD scale that seems pretty standard to the entire gamut of HERO games.

 

Watch two trained martial artists fight, and then try to tell me that they possess no more than a 4 SPD. Remember, 1 Segment is supposed to be 1 second. Are they really waiting 3 seconds between actions?

Watch two chumps fight and tell me if they wait 6 seconds between actions. SPD and phases seems like a bad way to track time, but a fairly good way to track relative actions.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

Most of us trust, more or less, the institutions. A police officer is answerable to his department, which is in turn answerable (in theory, eventually) to the public. The real identity of that police officer is very easy to ascertain. When trust in the institution breaks down, we stop trusting the uniforms.

 

A masked man using a false name is answerable to no one, until he's caught and the mask removed.

Superheroes are basically an institution.

Re: M&M to HERO

The ability to be immune to things is something that is M&M specific and not easily accounted for in a random system like Hero. Guns' date=' for instance, have too wide of a damage variance [2d6 rka ranges from 2 body 2 stun to 12 body 60 stun'] to be accounted for easily [and we've seen that argument many times already ]. But assuming someone has a 10 point force field in M&M converting it out to a 30 pd/ed force field in Hero still works.

Yes, but the point is that if you benchmark versus "real world" stuff, then PL 10 MM characters are far above 350 HERO supers in terms of DCs and defenses. A PL 10 blaster has the same power as a tank, while tanks in HERO have 18+ DCs - the M1A has over 30. That PL 10 FF blocks most of a tank shot or comparable EB in way that a 30 point FF doesn't.

Re: M&M to HERO

I'm not sure that 1 level of a power is the same as 6 AP though. A PL 10 MM character probably has attacks and defenses at least on par with MBTs, and many of them will completely ignore handguns and rifles.

Re: Why Kill At All?

I agree with both of you, Victim and Whitewings as to why comics are declining at present.

 

Comic prices have spiked a bit. Things that cost $1.50 in 1985 would translate to around $2.30 today. In 1985, comics were in the $0.50 to $0.75 and today they are $2.95. The only new competition on people's time today is the internet. However, it doesn't really translate to comics. After all, you can't go online and read the latest issue of Superman. (If you can tell me where so I can go see ).

 

So, I believe the biggest factor in the decline of comics profits is the tone and content. The reason why the people making the comics get away with it all is because the rights to those familiar names and images to the parent company are far more valuable than the comic division's profits.

Video and computer games have come a long way since 85. They can be flashy and visual like comics. Major book chains at least as much manga as they do they do traditional comics. If you want to read about super powered people doing stuff, then manga will probably work - the major downside is that they're usually B&W. Comic books even compete with their own titles via TBP - some people will wait for the trades to come out instead of buying issues individually. But I'd say that video games are the primary comic killers.

But yeah, tone might be a problem too, but only because the other problems. The darker, more violent series alienated some long time comic fans while the industry was failing to capture as many new readers.

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The Parr adults are killing Syndrome's guards with more than wardrobe malfunctions. Does violence not count if it's against un-named characters? And high velocity cars are pretty lethal. At that point Incredible was pulling out all the stops against Syndrome; that car was aimed directly at Buddy. If he'd missed totally with his car, then it would have landed in a crowded subdivision.

Re: Why Kill At All?

The fact is that, as comics have gotten darker, more graphic in nature, and hero killing gone up, profits from comics have gone down. The only reason Time Warner keeps DC around is for the mechandising rights. The new darker comics don't make enough to sustain the operation long term, but the films and TV shows, which take more of a silver age bent (except for the Tim Burton ones) are far more popular. The same could be said about Marvel. Remember, they were in bankruptcy and on the verge of going out-of-business if it hadn't been for a reorganizing that included the eventual generation of those powerhouse movies. And those movies follow a much closer to silver age comic style than anything on the racks today.

 

So, it is pretty obvious that the majority of people want heroes who don't kill. And like Spider-man in both movies, the heroes should actually try and reach out to help the villian, not kill him.

Yeah, the declining profitability of comics has everything to do with tone, and nothing to do with higher prices and increasing competition from other forms of entertainment.

Re: Creation philosophy

Zl'f seems dangerous, but not unbeatable. Also, she doesn't seem like a very forgiving character. Her attacks drop off quickly in effectiveness against higher Def foes, and many enemies will be able to circumvent her DCV. If you mess up one phase, then Zl'f will probably be knocked out for the rest of the fight.

Lariat is scary. 30 Dex, up to 32/32 defenses, and a 15d6 attack at 14 OCV.

Re: Generic books and threat levels

 

The problem is that you expect that Batman would need to be dodging to avoid being hit by the cats. In the comic what you are going to see are panels with Batman trying to avoid the cats. In panel represents a phase. In the game Batman will never be hit by the cats [except for the lucky "3" roll]. Batman also has a speed advantage as the lion has a 4 and Batman has a 6. Do you believe that Batman is quicker than a lion?

The idea that someone isn't dodging unless they're aborting phases is silly. That's why DCV is reduced when a character is suprised or unable to move effectively. DCV -> dodging.

Re: Building Power Armor

Well, that depends on how much he's going to make himself. A character would probably need some PS type skills related to actually manufacturing the armor if he's making it himself. On the other hand, if he can pull some predesigned systems from existing stuff, then he won't need so many science skills.

I'm kind of against an infinite proliferation of skills, though.

Re: Pulp Here and NOW

Wait, I thought those guys were Noir detectives, not Pulp.

Re: Summon to simulate seeking projectiles

Generally, you wouldn't write up a normal missile so abusively. It probably should have some STR based on its size like most vehicles. A normal missile would have much higher Dex (a jet fighter is like Dex 23, IIRC, so air to air stuff would have higher than that). I'm not sure why the missile is made out of cardboard either (1 Body). Since the only way the missile can move is with flight, putting charges/END on both is kind of overkill.

Re: Standard Bricks Tricks MP

I also like to have a Thunderclap attack for AoE hearing flash. It makes sense to add a bit of damage from the pressure and also a Change Environment for Sight penalties that fades quickly from debris thrown into the air by the force of the shockwave.

Re: Batman vs Midnighter

The Midnighter beats Batman regardless of any gadget Batman might use. The Midnighter can predict anyway that an opponent can attack him and counter accordingly.

So what? I'm not going to deny that Midnighter's battlecomputer is a huge advantage. But it's not an "I win" button either. There are a few simple principles that explain why: game theory and decision tree analysis already attempt to deal with perfect and imperfect information. Even with perfect information, you aren't guarenteed a win, or even the best possible outcome. And then there's perceptual issues, or in some respects Garbage in, Garbage out.