Pattern Ghost

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Another of the Lonestar Avengers, this is Ice Maiden, Harland's love interest in the campaign. She's got, you guessed it, ice powers! Harland didn't mind that she was a dirty mutie, either. Her personality was the polar opposite of Sunbeam's fiery temper (both played by the co-GM/GM's wife). She was always a bit of a fish out of water if stuff came to blows in combat, due to her very sweet personality. She was played as an innocent, kind of like some appearances of DC's Ice.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine When we got the Ultimate Powers Book, we all rolled up some new characters to check it out. Striker had Iron Will (I think that's what it was), which let him temporarily ignore huge amounts of damage, and take the effects of it later. He also had very high martial arts, gun, and stealth skills. He was an agent of SHIELD, sent as a liaison to the team. Unlike Harland and Bill, Striker (Roger Stevens) was less manic and much more stoic. When he moved in, he brought two large trunks. One was a wardrobe with several identical suits for civilian dress, a tux for formal wear, and a disguise kit. The other was a well-stocked weapons locker. He was very Spartan in his decorating, and kept a strict early to rise schedule. (It's 4 am, where are you? Everyone else: Sleeping! Striker: Just starting a morning workout.) He never really fit in too well with the team, as they were all (especially Harland, and excepting Bill) resentful and suspicious of his presence. He had physical stats on par with the US Agent, and used normal SHIELD armor and weapons straight out of the book. He usually carried and used a .45 that he could load with mercy bullets, explosive rounds, AP, and normal ammo. He also carried a katana on his back that he never drew. Ever. (The implication being that when it came out, THEN he was serious.) He had the distinction of having the only destructible costume in the group. The GMs figured that since it was "normal gear" that when he shrugged off a super powered energy blast, his armor probably wouldn't survive. He took to carrying an extra set of armor in the van when he went on a mission. (We were too cheap for quinjets, just had battle vans.)

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine An unofficial member of the Lonestar Avengers, Sunbeam was the heroic identity of the team's sponsor. She put up a ruse of being a local hero who operated independent of the group, but sometimes showed up in times of crisis to help out. Her powers were superhuman strength, solar regeneration, and solar energy projection. These were mystical in nature, derived through a link to an ancient sun goddess, which her bracers provided. She was one of the GM's PCs, who she usually just played when one of us players was filling in for GMing duties. One time she got particularly Mary Sue-ish on us, though, so I taunted her with Bill (remember the Van? This is the NPC/PC that paid for the van. And a lot of other Bill-related property damage), until she threatened to blast him. Bill promptly turned invisible, pointing out that her attacks would just pass through him and wreck the base.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Hmm, had an interesting thing happen with the program. I was trying to see if the eye color was showing up on a character I was making, so I right clicked and used the Flash Zoom In on it. Which messed it up. So, I right clicked again, and hit Play. When it restarted, it loaded the Brute template, which is still in progress (and not available from the button yet.) Most of the features aren't working yet. The mask is working on the second tab. So, what I did to get him looking like he was in a body suit is color his skin red and use Mask A and Mask B, with one being flesh colored. So, here's Krush, a brick of brickish proportions. I used him as a sympathetic villain once in a PBEM to encourage less jumping into fisticuffs and more RP. He's not a violent guy, and he doesn't have to be. He had 40 PD/ED in a 12-14DC campaign, Missile Deflection and extra DCV levels due to having HUGE hands, as well as extra STR for grabs and escapes, and extra STR, only to use as Casual STR, to bring his Casual STR up to his full STR level of 70. (This was a 250 pt game, btw, he was a bit of a beast.) Krush didn't want trouble, he just wanted treatments for his sick daughter. So, he acquired certain things for the real villain, in exchange for treatments. Basically, I played him as, "Hey, I don't wanna fight. You guys do a lot of good, and I admire that. But... I got things to take care of. Go do good somewhere else." After several prolonged fights, the team finally decided to investigate what he was up to, and when the DID finally get the better of him (using coordinated attacks to get around his huge PD/ED and wear him down), and got his full story, they decided to help him out, and take on the real villain. Oh, he didn't actually have a blue dog, at least not that I know of. I just tossed that in b/c I couldn't really get any details on his costume and it amused me. =P

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Here's The Amazing Bill. He was the second hero I made for the same campaign. After we new players got the hang of things, we each created a second hero. These were randomly rolled. Bill came out as a Robot with Sonic Projection at a high rank, lower ranks of Stunning Missles (he fired bean bags with smiley faces out the palms of his hands through a pneumatic system that he could also use for doing magic tricks), Invisibility, and Electric Resistance. He had Acting, Disguise and Sleight of Hand (remembered lol... the SoH was why I made him a magician in the first place). For his disguise talent, he simply removed his face and stuck another one on. He wasn't a complicated guy. He did manage to freak out the maid at the mansion/base when he was walking around between face swaps. He was placed in an animatronic display in an amusement park, and one night became self aware. How a sophisticated (ok, maybe that's the wrong word for Bill...) android/robot came to be in such a place, and why, remained a mystery up to the end of the campaign. (Give a GM a plot hook... ). One of the highlights of his career was finding out his entire team had been kidnapped and racing to the facility where they were being held in the team van. He figured out the basic driving OK, but not the speed or traffic signal laws, and ended up being followed by a large number of state troopers. He eventually became concerned that he may be causing trouble for the team, so he decided to cover for them. Knowing people were superstitious, when a trooper pulled along side his van to tell him to pull over, he turned invisible. That caused a minor accident between the troopers' cars. When he arrived on scene, one of the team's heavy hitters had already inadvertently brought the place down, and the warehouse sized building was in flames. (The scenario was that each of the characters awoke in a cell along with their double. Funny RP ensued as each of us played someone else's double.) So, Bill, now ahead of the police, jumps out of the van, just as his team is safely exiting the building. Since he's not needed and he doesn't want the team to get into trouble for his driving, he completes his ruse. He lifts the van over his head and flies into the air shouting, "I AM THE GHOST VAN!" Then he flings the multi-million dollar van into the burning building. That one got caused the team leader to have the team scientist put an "Off" switch in Bill. He got heavy handed in using it, and caused Bill a minor bout of depression, as this wasn't very encouraging for his quest to fit in with the normal humans. He also had a habit of avoiding combat and talking to his intended opponents, because he had a very curious nature, and wanted to know why they were up to what they were up to. This habit tended to throw monkey wrenches into villains plans. Oh, yeah. I couldn't do a proper shirt for the tuxedo, so I just put in a red undershirt for contrast. Imagine a cummerbund and a bow tie and you get the idea. =) Or just think of a VERY manic version of Mandrake the Magician. Edit: Updated Pic, gave him a tie, though not a bow tie, and a cummerbund of sorts.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Here's Harland. He was pretty easy. =) Harland Bernard Addison was my first Supers RPG character. I played him in a friend's campaign, in Berlin when I was in the Army. He's a basic Hulk homage, though he was written up a bit more powerful than the MSH version of the Hulk. (He had insanely high stats across the board, though he lacked the increasing STR of the Hulk.) I was basically handed his stats, his name, and a general description ("big and gray"). To that, I added his heroic ID, background, personality, and ... quirks. Basically, he was retired and kicking back at the beach. He acquired his powers while meditating under the influence of some fungus or other. His mind reached toward the stars (shiny man...) and made contact with an alien intelligence, and he became their -- somewhat flawed -- vessel on Earth. Considering his state of mind, he never did quite get the whole message, just the powers. So, he could be a harbinger of peace, or an engine of doom. He doesn't care, he prefers to use his powers for more important pursuits, like combing the beaches for stuff to add to his salt water aquarium, or impressing the ladies with his strength. As to the ID, I initially named him Goliath Toad, defining his Protected Senses as a nicitating membrane over the eyes and covered external ears (he has human-ish ears from the char generator). His Life Support, while handy for surviving in space for short times, was also perfect for the semi-aquatic life of a beach bum. Of course, I'd seen these giant FROGS on TV at least ten years before the campaign started and had forgotten they were not toads.... so that kind of blows his nom de guerre! His costume is simple: The loudest, most obnoxious swim trunks money can buy, with a Lone Star Avengers communicator strapped around his waist on a belt. He tried pinning on the fabric, but later decided he'd lose less of them if he strapped it around his waist with a more solid belt made of stronger stuff.

Re: Tigra (Marvel Universe) Forgot x2 STUN from Jobbing Attacks.

Re: Storn Art from idea to Full Picture Year 5 How dastardly! Dirty politics!

Re: Gun and Armor Critique.

Re: PDFs on Kindle Might want to wait for the newer Eee PC versions coming out, which will have an 8.9" screen with a 1024x600 resolution: http://blog.laptopmag.com/eee-pc-to-get-intels-diamondville-hard-drives-and-fashion-forward-style#more-544

Re: Gun and Armor Critique. Personally, I don't see a problem with the 0 END slots and the END Reserve. They just draw so little power the reserve recovers it almost instantly (the couple of seconds between the character's phases being when it "recovers".) Though, a 3d6 Entangle is pretty low, I'd probably remove the 0 END advantage or take it to 1/2 END to buy up the Entangle dice.

Re: Gun and Armor Critique.

Re: Gun and Armor Critique. Or, they have the option of a really big gun for destroying giant robots and foci. Besides, non-killing attacks are lethal levels of damage against normals, so the same could be said of anyone with super powered attacks that aren't stun only or entangles or the like.

Re: Gun and Armor Critique. Or you could just buy it as straight Armor. Armor can be turned off.

Re: What to do with an extra copy of Wings of the Valkyrie? Marksman's the guy on the cover. He's cooler than Defender. Even had his own comic. I think wowio.com has 'em.

Re: Wonder Woman

Re: Is Flight Slow? Thanks!

Re: Is Flight Slow? I was looking for No Turn Mode in the book, but couldn't find it. Where'd you find it?

Re: Is Flight Slow? This is what I have: The only mention of Combat Movement is as a limit of acceleration per phase. The example in that section gives the following numbers: The sample character can accelerate up to his full Combat Movement of 20" in one phase, but he will have to move 4 Hexes. (20/5) If he's moving at full speed, 160", he would take 8 Phases and 32 Hexes to stop. <-- That's the same four hexes per phase. So, if you had a puny 5" of base velocity with a really high Non Combat multiplier, you'd take forever to speed up to full speed and to stop. Because you're capped at 5" of acceleration/deceleration per phase. The +1/4 Advantage reduces the number of phases to the number of doublings (instead of the NCM multiplier number), so if you had x16 Non combat, you'd only take 3 phases instead of the 16. I thought this was what you meant in your prior post, but I must've misread it. The +1 Advantage is basically instant acceleration, one hex, one phase to full NCM. edit: Looking at my other post, I think I just didn't put it clearly.

Re: Is Flight Slow? Actually, it looks like 1 phase per 5" of velocity. There's a +1/4 Advantage, Improved Noncombat Movement, which works as you describe. Unless Revised changed it. Don't have revised. Of course, a +1 Advantage solves the problem, and is probably appropriate for a character whose shtick is flying.

Re: Storn Art from idea to Full Picture Year 5 That's OK, that was more for fun.

Re: Is Flight Slow? I usually multiply the total inches per Turn by .37, which gets you pretty close. For KPH, I use .6, which is spot on afaik. For fastest really accurate conversion to MPH, take total inches per Turn x.6, then go to google and type in "X kph to mph" without the quotes.

Re: Powered Armor Package Deal For Review On the other hand, is there a mechanic for stripping someone of their Heroic ID? OIHID powers cannot be removed. Power Armor can be removed*. The fact that the rules make it stupidly fast to do if you follow the letter of the rules doesn't make it the wrong Limitation. *In general. For concepts where removing the armor is impossible, then sure, go with OIHID.

Re: "Does everyone have silver bullets?" Silver bullets would be a pain in the butt to hand cast, because the melting point is so high. Home smelting pots may not cut it. The Lone Ranger casting his bullets over a camp fire is definitely not doable. However, that doesn't mean silver projectiles are hard to come by. Simply hand load shotgun shells with whatever silver you have laying around, grab a smoothbore shotgun, and you're good to go. I'd give such improvised ammo a penalty to its DC and OCV, though, perhaps -1 DC off standard shot, and -2 OCV. As to how common the character faces silver... that's what the commonality part of the disad is for. It's whatever the GM and player decide it will be. It could be Common because everyone "knows" silver hurts werewolves, and the PC looks like one, or it could be Uncommon because, hey, who the heck would think it's a "real" werewolf? Probably just some mutie, yah.

Re: Storn Art from idea to Full Picture Year 5 I'll toss out a few: Geist: Form-fitted, sleek power armor, which has chameleon capability via a photo-receptive surface, (Transmits what's on one side of the suit to the other side.) allowing for advanced near-invisibility level camouflage. The armor itself is fairly form-fitting, with darker areas of lighter, more flexible armor contrasting with lighter areas with hardened trauma plates (the shoulders, chest, elbows, gloves including wrist, knees, boots, and of course helm.) The helm has a single large lens in the middle, with a smaller pair of lenses offset above it (targeting laser and IR emitter for active IR vision), giving a somewhat sinister look. The "collar" of the armor is large, and reinforced to prevent whiplash in confrontations with superhumanly strong opponents. The suit's gauntlets are heavier trauma plate material with darker flexible fingers, allowing use of normal hand held weapons. The primary weapon is a hand held ultra-low frequency sonic projector (an AVLD vs. Hearing flash). The weapon's blast shows as a series of ring-shaped air distortions. The weapon runs on batteries that have the capacity for a limited number of shots, and are mounted on the top rear of the weapon. The batteries have a bar gauge of their charges. (8 or so bars). Spares are carried in cylindric holders around the waist. Geist also has a "bag of goodies" on his back, in a small, hard-sided back pack. A small air tank rests below the pack, just above the small of his back. Thunder Hawk: The Brick's Brick. A large, square-jawed hero. His costume is a body suit of blue, with red gloves and boots. His cowl and cape are white. The cowl/cape extends across his shoulders and down a bit onto his chest, where it is clasped by a gold thunder bird (this isn't actually a cape clasp, since it doesn't need it, but serves as his communicator). The cape has scallops along the bottom edge, suggestive of feathers. He has a gold-tinted visor that wraps around to the sides of his head, where it then curves up to a subtle wing shape. The visor is a shallow V-shape in front, and comes to just enough of a point to suggest a beak, but in a low-key way. Likewise, the part of his cowl covering his chin is an inverted V, forming a pointed bottom "beak." He wears a gold-colored belt which has several cylinders also of a gold-colored metal which hold basic supplies for first aid and the like. The soles of his boots are thick, and noticeably reinforced, as are the backs and knuckles of his gloves. Blue Comet: Movement based demi-brick. He's solidly built, more like a swimmer or gymnast than a bodybuilder. His head is covered with a close-fitting helmet with a semi-clear blue visor. The helmet has a small "fin" on top, giving it a retro look. The costume is solid blue, with a white/silver comet over the heart, its trail winding down and around his back and one leg. He wears silver bracers. His hands are bare, his boots are one piece with the body suit. He emits a blue force field with a long "tail" trailing behind it. His features are somewhat pugilistic, reminiscent of old pulp heroes like the Shadow or an early Superman. Barnstormer: Somewhat bulky power armor, with large jet-pack on his back, which has inverted wings (forms a V shape when looking at him head on) on it. Helmet has visor reminiscent of goggles. The boots and gloves are on the bulky side. Small jet nozzles pop out on either side of the boots and at the hips, for fine maneuvering. His primary color is bright red, his secondary color gold. Concept is aerobatic flier. Leaves a contrail when he flies. Greyhound: Speedster. Like his namesake, he is long and lean. His costume is a cowled body suit, with the cowl suggesting a dog's head. The mask lenses are mirrored. His suit has reinforced areas everywhere bones are near the surface (hips, joints, etc), as well as at the shoulders. The main suit color is a medium gray. The reinforcements resemble pieces of tire in texture and color (and they may be). His boots are built up, with thick soles and extra ankle support, to withstand the stress of running at high speed. He carries a short, thick truncheon in his right hand, just over a foot long. (It's made of heavy solid rubber, so it gives when he whacks someone with it at high speed. This is to protect him more than the other guy.) His features are coarse and gaunt. Dr. Nanuk: "Polar bears are the Einsteins of the bear community." Polar bear in a bipedal stance, with high tech gear strapped on him, including a back pack with an array of antennas and blinking lights, and a monocle/loup over one eye. He's holding a Geiger counter type device in his hands*, the box in one hand, sensor in the other. (Sorry, read the animal rule, but I just caught up on Lost, so I had to. The Island made me do it.) *And by "hands" I mean front paws. =)