Victim

Because not many character concepts involve powers that always work randomly. In most cases, unreliable powers use RSR or something, possibly with the luck variant. Similarly, Unluck can cover the occassional jam or misfire. On the other hand, heroes who have activate their powers or transform in some way aren't exactly uncommon. Also, OIHID works for heroes who get slapped around out of combat and with the opening moves.

Escalation An elite police officer who recieved super powers during an incident with a dangerous villain. He was made for no name in particular, so he's kind of generic and not fully fleshed out. Upon reviewing his skills, he might be fit better as FBI, or with some changes, UNTIL or PRIMUS. STR 20 (10) DEX 20 (30) CON 28 (36) BOD 15 (10) INT 18 (8) EGO 18 (16) PRE 10 (0) COM 12 (1) PD 4 -> 7/5r ED 4 -> 7/5r REC 10 STUN 40 (1) END 60 (2) SPD 4 (10) Run 8 (4) Leap 4 Swim 4 (2) CHAR Cost: 120 Powers: 8 Fast Healing (Regen 1 Bod/Turn) 2 Tough (Damage Resistance for 2 PD and ED) 20 Resistant (Power Defense 20) 64 Escalation (2d6 Aid, Affects all physical characteristics and movement abilities +2, +18 max, 30 total, Continuous, Uncontrolled; Requires some tense situation before activation -1/2, Self Only -1/2, Visible to sight, touch, hearing -1/4, Standard Effect) Powers Cost: 94 18 Martial Arts: M. Block, M. Strike, M. Grab, M. Throw, M. Escape, Weapon Element: Nightstick 10 Defense Manuever 4 10 +2 HtH levels 20 +2 Overall levels 6 Combat Luck 3/3 Combat Traits Cost: 67 3 Lightsleep 3 Tactics 13- 3 Teamwork 13- 3 Acrobatics 13- 2 Combat Driving 11- 3 Concealment 13- 2 Conversation 11- 3 Criminology 13- 3 Deduction 13- 2 Forensic Medicine 11- 2 Streetwise 11- 2 Security Systems 11- 3 Breakfall 13- 3 Shadowing 13- 2 WF: Small Arms 2 KS: Police Procedures 11- PS: Detective 11+ AK US 8- 2 AK: Campaign City 11- English (native) 3 Computer LInk, police 15 Contact 11- very useful, good relation, organization (local law enforcement) MISC Cost: 61 6 Equipment: Nightstick +3d6 HA, OAF, hth Disads: 20 CVK 15 Serve and Protect 20 Watching: Police, more power, NCI, ID, 11- 10 Public ID 25 Vulnerable: 1.5x Stun, Body from Sonic attacks, 1.5x from Sonic Flashes 20 Hunted: Dissonance (sonic guy), more power, ID, 8- 10 Unluck 2d6 20 Overconfident, Arrogant Jerk when AID is maxed out. 10 Amnesia regarding period immediately following power aquisition Base 200 Disads 150 Total 345 5 points not spent

Fred, for Fifth Revised Edition.

It might be funnier if the host didn't have the power to control the guests. Don't forget additional complications, like Hunteds showing up. Since the characters will be in super ID for a while, and under lots of stress, some of their characteristic mannerisms might show. Watching DNPCs notice. Someone is really organizing the show to get his rivals out of the way or in one place. Maybe some monstrously powerful character shows up as a contestant. Team A) The champions. Team Foxbat, Bulldozer, some elite Viper commando, and Gravitar.

How about Invisibility to just about everything, but with the Time Delay advantage? Set the delay so that the power takes effect after the encounter ends, or whatever. Then they interact normally at first, then the power turns on and they didn't see you.

I'm looking for opinions regarding building a suit of power armor as a vehicle. On one hand, vehicular PA can easily represent many powered armor concepts fairly easily. Multiple suits are handled easily without a clumsy multiform construct. The suit's strength isn't dependent on the pilot; I really hate it when a pilot's physical stats radically alter the suit's abilities. For example, if you compare a pilot with starting physical power and toughness attributes, versus one with max NCM values, there's a huge difference. A 300 kg difference in lifting becomes a 75 ton difference, etc. Also, vehicles come cheap enough that secondary powers that might otherwise be overlooked can be purchased. For example, radar, radios, air conditioning. Finally, using a vehicle means that stupid stuff like 1 pip multi-Penetrating attacks don't blow up your OIF in one shot. The downsides would be that vehicles are generally big and heavy, require a skill to drive, take longer to get into than OIHID or OIF, and cost points to replace. Also, the vehicle gets weaker as it takes damage. Also, indirect attacks with the proper sfx might be able to frag the pilot through the armor. On the other hand, vehicular armor might be a bit too cheap, especially if the simplifying rule from the FAQ is used. Having lots of powers in a vehicle can effectively multiply points, like a Multiform. Also, the vehicle can protect the character perhaps a bit too well. In addition to serving kind of like a force wall, since vehicle probably blocks LoS, it also shields the pilot mentally.

Get some awesome space fighters and the wingmen to help fly them? I think asking lots of questions about the nature of the campaign would be pretty helpful. Are things like human enhancements via genetic engineering and or nanotech common, and thus where the points are supposed to go? Are the characters major players in the settings, and thus need to have lots of bases, contacts, followers, vehicles, perks, and skills? Are the PCs on the Jedi Council and thus probably should be buying lightsaber fighting and force powers?

Can you describe what the different classes and categories mean? How bad is a Class 9 summons?

If combat skill levels are used to increase the damage of an autofire attack, does each hit generated by autofire recieve the bonus damage, or only the first one?

Megascale area or explosion powers turn a character into a weapon of mass destruction. Kind of. While they may not have the DCs to punch through tank armor, they function as strategic threats.

How about something like +Speed, only to take Recoveries. While 15 REC is good, it's not going to keep Wolverine conscious when under heavy attack.

Actually, I've thought of a good way to beat the undead animation (summoning). Animate all the corpses in the area first as incredibly weak undead, so there's no bodies in range for Tako to animate. With 61 active points, you could get over 4000 5 point zombies or skeletons (average normals, but undead) so Tak might not have bodies left for his summons.

Step 1: Scry the inside of the alien ship to catch a glimpse or the aliens and identify them. With an indirect telepathy effect, touch the aliens' minds so that they can be recognized later on. Step 2: Megascale universe searching to discern the location of their homeword. Create a teleport spell to get there. Step 3: Aim super range and area spells at Mars until one is found to be suitably viscous. Step 4: Recover mana and set up some new spells if needed. Step 5: Explain to the intruders that any hostile action here will be met by an attack on their home areas. If in a dominant bargining position, demand that they the intruders leave, and dissolve their nation/empire into no fewer than X (some large, semi random number) independent entities. Just because.

You could also "share the love" with Duplicates. Spread the Duplicates out among the players so each player has more to do, and one guy doesn't have to worry about controlling a zillion dupes.

Hmm. Without much playing experience, I was thinking that Ego levels would generally be more effective at shutting out mental powers, with the exception of Ego Attack. Every 2 points of Ego levels is worth 5 points of effect roll or about 1.5 dice of effect. On the other hand, every 5 points of mental defense is worth 5 points effect. With both a low amount of point investment (1-10) and huge point investment MD might be better.In the first case, characters essentially get 2 points for free from Ego which can help, and in the second, break out roll will still fail on an 18, while not much will get through 50 MD, Hardened. ------------------------------------ Indirect Methods: Not having any people actually present means mind powers aren't so good. There's no one to capture and mind read if a criminal uses drones or RPVs to commit crimes. Anonymous communication systems would be more related to an Ignorance based plan, but are still valid. Using some form of coercion on civilians also keeps your hands clean enough to prevent easy detection by mental powers. Suspect Overload: Say we have a nice list of suspects for the crime. The husband, lover, butler, etc. It's no great feat to mind read these people and look to see if they did it. Most of the time, this approach will quickly turn up the killer. But if some random junky killed the person? What if some serial killer did it because the saw the person walking down the street? In a big city, you can't just mind read everybody. A conventional investigation would be required to develop a case far enough for mental powers to be useful. They'd save the group some time since the usual suspects could be cleared, but wouldn't be all that great.

Well, instead of mental defense, consider giving Agents some 2 point skill levels with Ego rolls so they can break out more easily. This could easily reflect some strong will, mental indoctrination (cults, secret societies), or torture resistance (that Air Force survival and evasion thing). A mentalist could still dismantle these agents in combat with ego attack, but probably couldn't completely overpower them with mind control or telepathy. Giving henchmen information only on a need to know basis is another useful tool, employed by governments around the world. Also, minions may not need to know the correct information. The Imperial agents you telepathicly interrogate explain that the new death Star is under construction at Endor. But only a handful people know that all the main systems are operational so the station will kill the rebel fleet when it attacks. Pity the poor techs who installed the weapons systems. These tricks also reduce the number of effective witnesses, so a villain is less likely to be ratted out. And there could be some kind of illusions versus mental that some people can throw up. With appropriate lims, it'd be a non-powered power. I'm reminded of The Vlad Taltos books when the main character is questioned by the Imperial Orb (detects lies). "I think he commited suicide." (with the things he said to me, he was asking to get killed.) Or something like that. It was funnier (or, actually somewhat funny) in the original text.

Well, I don't follow every adventure, so I don't know how many decent mystery scenarios there are. But many good adventures have some element of mystery to them. Investigation scenarios probably work better at lower levels (Death in Freeport, as an example). When bigger divinations and super high skills come into play, then things need more complications and adversaries capable of countering some of the PCs efforts. If you're looking at other systems, how about Conspiracy X? The point of the game is investigation, and PCs get free psychic powers that can be used to ask yes or no questions (like Commune, except you have to guess cards to make them work). Biokinesis + hypnosis works much like mind control. If you don't expect a normal guy with a gun to pose much of physical challenge to character loaded with combat powers, then why do you expect a normal guy to mentally challenge characters loaded with mental/investigation powers? Are those powers less super? If messing the PCs up in combat against agents requires well trained enemies with good equipment, diversionary tactics (bombs, hostages, rubble falling on civilians), and limited objectives (delay the heroes so X can happen, etc) since total victory is unlikely, then shouldn't similar methods be required for any would be criminal mastermind? Telepathiclly attempting to discern the teenager's motivations might work. If you consider a confusing mix of reasons without context to be good data. And it doesn't tell you how or why she got ahold of the armor. Finally, everything you get from her is colored by her perceptions. You get information, yes. Useful or accurate info, well, maybe not.

So, in other words, characters with super powered investigation abilities can easily solve mundane mysteries. Wow, who'd of thought that superpowers would actually be super? DnD has tons mystery busting powers too. You can start with Detect Evil or Charm Person, and the potential keeps going up.

Why not just turn some of the dice into a fixed number, and roll the rest? Instead of a 30d6 attack, make it a 10d6+70 attack.

One idea I had for a Dragon Slave write up was to have 1 big killing attack for the main beam, a moderate area normal attack, and side effect: massive property damage to create the big crater. This way, even when the village is destroyed, all the people can chase after the characters.

The Giga Slave and Dragon Slave seem rather small for 8d6 and 6d6 killing respectively. They'd be nasty in play, but since they're supposed to KILL things, not stun them, the damage seems insufficient. High body people have a chance of survival, much less big dragons. Also, it should definitely have Personal Immunity. Consider all the cases in which Lina fires it at point blank range (relatively speaking).

Well, the idea is building Vancian style spells. The caster needs some time and spell notes to ready his handful of spells. However, to release the spell, perhaps gestures, incantations, or a low level of extra time. The doubling value like for Constant throughout is pretty much what I meant. But adding the same lim twice = doubling the value. And then you could set up different values of the lim. For example, a huge amount of extra time for preparing the spell, and full phase to cast it. But the seperate -1/2 thing works too.

Instead of using Change Environment or Images, perhaps Transmit for Detect: light as a naked adder would work.

I have a couple of questions about the Delayed Effect advantage. Essentially, it let's you suffer all the disads of the power when you prepare it instead of when you use it. So what if I want a power that requires certain limitations when preparing (Concentration, Extra Time), but also has certain limitations in effect when used. It seems like it might be appropriate to increase the value of those lims, but by how much? Would it be possible to take a lim twice, once for preparing, once for using? Also, how would you create a multi-part power without having 2 separate Delayed Effect slots? The normal Linked approach doesn't seem to handle that right.

A Lear Jet is 2x8 hexes, and has 16 Body. An F-15 is 8x4 and has 19 Body. I can easily see those getting destroyed in one hit. But maybe you should buy some extra Body. Future things should be tougher. The dogfight rules in the core book ought to work much better for small vehicles like fighters than they would for battle cruisers. So maybe they felt big ships needed the most work.