Matt the Bruins

Re: Raptured Earth Girl would be torn between concern and sadness over the disappearance of some people she knows (she's a former environmental and humanitarian aid activist) and a "Yay, 144,000 fewer people polluting the globe!" reaction. Kurzhaan the Conqueror would be impressed by the power this "new" god Jehovah is apparently displaying, but mystified why it would want to potentially lessen its long-term influence by removing its purest-hearted followers from earthly life where they could be garnering belief to empower it. He doesn't have the cultural context to really appreciate how the Rapture figures in to modern monotheistic religion. He'd probably enjoy wading into the increased societal chaos though. Super Model would wonder why the do-gooder types didn't take all their more annoying Bible-thumper associates with them. And continue business as usual.

Re: Nuclear Explosion Man Then it's time to turn to Changes-Fissionable-Materials-Into-Lead Man

Re: Angel, the worst original character concept ever? That didn't last too long though. I think Sue was the FF member who knockled the Hulk out before their issue numbers were in the triple digits.

Re: a [can]trippy question I think I was familiar with the word from stage magic and sleight of hand. I don't recall being puzzled by its meaning when I first ran across the D&D reference.

Re: A super-powered normal Ellie Maye Clampett: Transform food ingredients into inedible substances with a variety of miraculous qualities.

Re: The Champions Universe's mightiest archetypes Isn't there a character in Galactic Champions with a 500-point VPP? (I'm wondering what sort of character it is, as that's an active point total for a power pool that I'd associate with higher dimensional cosmic entities or full-blown manifestations of Kings of Edom.)

Re: Conan vs. Elric His ladies are always the helpless damsel types that are constantly getting kidnapped by his enemies and killed just before he can save them. I don't think Xena or Gabrielle fits the requirement...

Re: Changing Into The Powersuit It probably wouldn't work for this particular character concept, but what about the powersuit actually being in electronic plan form stored on a fairly compact computer device that builds the armor around the character, with nannites sucking in metal from the surrounding environment via a Transform? Say that you have to grab cover and wait until the Transform builds up enough points of effect to equal double the suit's BODY.

Re: Favorite 60-point Power Construction Yeah, but the power build listed would need the additional Does Body (+1) advantage to actually do BODY damage just like any other NND or AVLD attack, right? (Mind you, slipping an average of 9 points of STUN past just about anyone's defenses isn't exactly chicken feed if you're dealing with a villain that's nigh-invulnerable otherwise...) I think my favorite 60-point power would be one that I came up with for Earth Girl: Cloud of Pollen: Sight and Smell/Taste Groups Flash 5d6, Area Of Effect Nonselective (4" Radius; +3/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4) (60 Active Points); Activation Roll 14- (-1/2), No Range (-1/2), Only When In Contact With The Ground (natural earth, stone, and soil only; -1/2) 24 Real Points, used as a 2-point ultra slot in a multipower. The flowers that grow in her "hair" and on various other parts of her body open up and start spraying highly allergenic pollen into the air around her.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE MACHINE: What Do *You* Want To See? That's a pretty scary idea, all his quick jury-rigged household appliance Decepticons being self-aware AIs in their own right that are just zealously loyal to Mechannon's cause. Make it a full setting book detailing her empire and you could call it The Empress of a Billion Pages.

Re: Angel, the worst original character concept ever? You could always give original recipe Angel a hefty ranged attack for throwing his wallet at someone.

Re: Super Psychos Warren Ellis' Planetary had a really chilling description of its villainous Reed Richards analogue. His "stretching" was mental rather than physical, apparently a psychic equivalent to how The Blob operates: infectiously reproducing parts of his own mind within the minds of others. I envision this as mental-only Duplication, Usable As Attack (maybe with EGO rolls to allow the psychic doppelganger to control victims' actions) and a Mind Link between the original and all the duplicates.

Re: Conan vs. Elric Admittedly I haven't read all REH's Conan stories, but he strikes me as remarkably lucky in overcoming foes with massive tactical advantages time and again. By contrast, you can probably find a picture of Elric in some dictionaries next to the word "misfortune." While Elric is the vastly more powerful of the two between his sorcery, his legendary artifact sword, and the favor of his patron demon-god, Conan would probably stumble across the key to defeating him by chance and either kill him or leave him defeated, weaponless and weakly moaning like Edgar Winter after a 5-day bender.

Re: Bizarre Spell Ideas Somehow I can't quite see Phyllis Schlafly having that particular racial ability.

Re: Hand to Hand Reflection Combining Block maneuvers with a limited Damage Shield (only as many DCs as the incoming attack that is successfully blocked) seems the appropriate option for hand-to-hand reflection to me, since presumably you'd be reflecting the kinetic energy of the blow back on the attacker rather than making his hand or weapon do a 180º bend and hit him instead.

Re: What defines Hero ID I recall Thor used to need to tap his hammer on the ground twice to engage his weather control powers. Which always puzzled me as a kid, since tapping his hammer on the ground once was supposed to turn him back into Donald Blake.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE MACHINE: What Do *You* Want To See? Who knows, having a Bride of Mechannon around might take the edge off that "kill all humans" mantra and give Mechannon an appreciation for the individuality of organic lifeforms. 10 GOTO: BED AND GOODNIGHT 20 GOOD TIME 30 GOOD TIME 40 GOOD TIME 50 GOOD TIME 60 GOOD TIME

Re: Doesn't this sound like a gadgeteer villain idea to take over the world? Ignoring the fact that the bulk of the world's population is too poor to have easy access to computers. But hey, white middle-class America is all that really matters, right?

Re: Changing into a costume So apparently the average super hero previously worked as a Chippendales dancer and now wears street clothes with tear-away velcro tabs instead of buttons and zippers? (Hey, it would at least explain the physiques...)

Re: THE BOOK OF THE MACHINE: What Do *You* Want To See? Oh, I definitely vote for the last, if for no other reason than the opportunity to say "Mechannon comes alive!" in a game.

Re: How i can make The Ravager cows away No capes!

Re: THE BOOK OF THE MACHINE: What Do *You* Want To See? I'd definitely like to see a version of Mechannon built with pre-industrial technology as a clockwork automaton. At least one published Hero character has the ability to fling those big Kulan Gath-style turn-everything-into-its-ancient-equivalent spells, and it would be neat to see what Mechannon would end up like if caught in such an effect. Oh, and orbital death-ray platforms are always fun, too.

Re: VPP, Extra Capacity? Bear in mind that the skill roll goes against Active Points assigned in the pool, not Real Points. Assuming several powers with a decent spread of limitations to bring the overall cost below the pool limit, that 90-point VPP could easily generate a -18 or more to the roll if you need to change them all at once. Takofanes may be able to pull that sort of stunt off regularly, but I doubt characters built on a standard 350 points can.

Re: 6E art? Art can help even the driest of texts flow and make it more readable, as well as providing visual cues that help readers navigate a book and understand processes depicted more quickly on an intuitive level. My work involves designing and illustrating textbooks, and even for teacher guides where the content is the focus and the readers are education professionals adding a bit of art helps maintain interest, individualizing the pages and breaking up the monotony of endless text. That said, some of the artwork that appears in Hero products is cringe-inducingly bad. I know it's not practical for Storn Cook and Ted Kim to draw every non-cartographic illustration for the product line, but I wouldn't mind seeing the standard of acceptable artwork raised a bit and the extra space generated by doing so put to use for sidebar tables or plain old white space instead.

Re: VPP, Extra Capacity? Vincent Dimetrios in Mystic Masters, a 4th Ed. supplement, has a 100 point VPP with a 75 Active Point limit on individual powers. If I recall correctly, the Control Cost is still 50 points, so it is effectively a -0 limitation (though its value wasn't stated in the write-up). I know that's pulling from ages past, but I think VPP structure is one of the things that hasn't changed much since 4th Edition.