archer

Come to think of it, a lot of things tend to be active when covered by the sheets....

All the old religions used to be new at one point, right? I'm trying to design a religion for a progressive kingdom. 1) The royal family has for decades rewarded, in various ways, the people who come up with innovations which make life easier, less expensive, healthier, etc. 2) The government has recruited the best and brightest to get free education at universities which act as think tanks. The ones who come up with their own innovations (which are marketable) are often set up to manage a government-owned shop which creates and markets those items. In some cases where the item is universally useful, the government might mandate that everyone in the kingdom buy the item (such as all farmers being required to buy a wheelbarrow with a temporary offset in taxes-owed so the farmer can afford the purchase). Other graduates teach at the university or make the rounds to village schools. Or judge whether innovations are useful and how much someone should be rewarded for coming up with the idea. Or do pure research privately or at the university. Or go into business for themselves (the government does have a primitive form of patents for some devices if the person is immediately trying to go into production with their idea). 3) The government is the source of gentle persuasion to push progress forward. If there's no tavern or inn in a place where one is needed, the government is likely to open one, run it at a profit for a few years, then sell it off. It will require every family owning or sharecropping land to have a fruit-bearing tree on that land with the tax collector doubling as an arborist who inspects the tree at least yearly to make sure it is being properly cared for and who gives advice if it isn't being fruitful. Every village is required to have a grove of fruit trees maintained by the community for the use of the community. Anyway, you get the idea. The government is stable, benevolent, maybe a bit heavy-handed compared to our modern world's level of freedoms but far ahead of the behavior of royalty and government in most fantasy kingdoms. The nobility generally goes along with the royalty for the most part because their schemes have improved the nobles' tax income and quality of life (at least when the nobles' lands aren't being appropriated for some scheme). Religion is tougher to get a grasp on than government, at least for me. And this religion is tougher than some because while the government is into education and industry, this religion is into a benevolent form of banking and insurance. When someone needs a loan, they go to the church. For example, the local priest looks over a business proposal then either approves the loan or sends for a specialist who knows more about that business so that person can make the decision to approve the loan. Loans are repaid not only by paying back the money plus some interest but also in the form of "you owe the church a favor or two". You might be the specialist called on to travel to another village to look at a business proposal. You might have to fix the roof of the orphanage or trim the trees in the village grove or teach classes at the village school, whatever the church needs to have done. And for big projects or other emergencies, the king will approach the church for a loan. And so far, the kingdom has repaid every loan (in money terms at least, though a few favors are still outstanding). The church is the guardian of the communities. The church is the guardian of the kingdom. But the church is not necessarily the servant of the king. That has sometimes been a delicate balancing act but not in recent decades since the royal family has become more progressive and benevolent. That's the role the church plays in the society, now on to the belief system. Most religions to me seem to have a major defining characteristic or moral value which you can use as shorthand to describe it. Catholicism is ritualistic, charismatic Christian denominations have "being filled with the Spirit", some Eastern religions have the concept of karma, etc. I think I'm wanting a values-based religion rather than a highly ritualistic one or one which requires, maybe I'm not putting this right, but not a high degree of personal devotion and trying to convert other people to the religion. Adherents to the religion should be kind of cool and laid back about the religion. They don't get their knickers in a twist if they miss services or nag the new arrival in town to go to the temple. They just believe and are friends of the priest. And the priest believes and is a friend to the townsfolk. When thinking over values which might be broadly benevolent, the one which comes to me is Moderation. Can you drink? Can you be greedy and think of yourself or your family first? Can you be selfless and think of others first? Can you think badly of the king? Can you curse at the weather? Can you give your wealth to the poor? Can you try risky things? There's a lot of questions in life which can be answered with "In Moderation". And a kingdom full of people who choose to be Moderate People would be an interesting place to visit, not to mention highly disturbing to the rulers of other kingdoms. The royalty is pushing the kingdom to be educated and industrious. The religion doubles as the banking system and encourages the people to be Moderate. Given that premise, how do you see the religion working? Should there be a deity or are they worshiping only a virtue? Do the priests do magic and if so, what kind of magic? Are the priests full time clerics? Do they have a distinctive form of dress? Do you see such an order of priests as being pure, corrupt, or a mixed bag? What other values suggest themselves to you as part of a belief system which places its highest value as being Moderation?

Does Frosty Bob have ice powers or does he have beer powers?

Portable Shrine - The name for this item varies according to which religious tradition created it but basically the item is a tent or sweat lodge which has the ability to Change Environment: Consecrate Ground. How useful being on consecrated ground happens to be depends upon the opponent you face. For example, some undead cannot enter consecrated ground at all, while others only sustain some kind of penalty. Also, some deities prefer prayers to take place on consecrated ground so having the item may be of more use to followers of some religious traditions than to other people. Usually the Portable Shrine is too short for humans to stand upright, can comfortably sit up to three people on the floor, or can fit one prone person plus one sitting person (the last configuration typically used during healing when the priest suspects some magical or demonic influence might be warded off by getting the patient to consecrated ground). More powerful shrines can consecrate a substantial part of the surrounding area but, fairly often, only the walls and interior of the tent are consecrated. The affected radius of some Portable Shrines have been known to decrease with age but it isn't known whether this is an unavoidable design flaw or just a flaw which has cropped up in the making of some of the devices. ==== Change Environment: Consecrate Ground OAF: tent/tabernacle/sweat lodge Extra time (only to activate) plus five hours (only if I'm the person who is trying to put up the tent) plus extra two hours (only if I'm doing it in the rain)

Cap of Wisdom (aka The Thinking Cap) - Most often used by tinkerers or wizards. Or by kings who want to gain the reputation of being wise and benevolent ("Wow, King Frederick has a Cap of Wisdom!"). +5 INT (20 minutes of extra time but only to activate -1 1/4). The extra time is for meditation and attunement to synch up the Cap with the wearer's brain. Long Johns of Warmth - Life Support vs Cold Swim Fins and Snorkel Healing Blanket - Gives +5 CON only on rolls to resist the effects of diseases and poison. A popular item among healers and traveling priests who are only minor adepts. Tool Belt of the Carpenter - Gives PS: Carpenter (note that this is the professional skill rather than a knowledge skill). Such items are designed to give people an unearned expertise which might normally require a long apprenticeship. Countless variations on this item can be made such as "Apron of the Cook". These items can be pricey but are commissioned from time to time by people of the merchant class with children who are not particularly skilled in the family business or by minor nobles for their wastrel second sons who are not in line to inherent the family's property and title (PS: Warrior or PS: Knight can help build a reputation and land the son an appropriate marriage offer).

Armor of Immortality (or slow aging) - a must for any despot or any king who doesn't have an heir but it'll look suspicious eventually if he never removes the armor. I like the idea of armor which has an aversion to taking damage. Maybe something like a small bonus to DCV. But when the armor would have taken more than twice its BODY in damage in a single blow, it instead the SFX moves the owner's body so that the owner takes the blow on an unarmored portion of his body. You really think of the role of armor as to be protection for you, instead this armor subverts that expectation by protecting itself. Boots of the Metal Detector - Detect refined metals on the surface or buried underground. Finds lost coins, buried treasures, swords and belt buckles from ancient battlesites, etc. This item can be as useful or as time-consuming and useless as the GM needs it to be. Snapshot Monocle - Activate it to take a single picture of any item or area. Activate it again to see the projected image. Mostly considered a tool for burglars and forgers but it has been used effectively from time to time to help identify weaknesses in fortifications. Opera Glasses of Honor - Detects the personality trait of "having a good character". Mostly used by high society types who want to avoid hiring thieves and scoundrels to perform sensitive tasks. Ring of Faster-Than-Light Travel - A popular suicide device among the rich and famous because it is thought to be painless...but no one really knows since the body immediately disappears when the ring is activated. McGuillicuddy's Cap of Conjuring - A Transform with a variable result (the air inside the hat into whatever). This is a golfing cap version of the classic magician hat where the magician pulls something unexpected out of the hat. Only common adventuring items and supplies can be pulled from the hat (the user chooses what he gets). The items often look odd which will make people reluctant to buy the items so the Cap can't be used to easily create infinite income. Uses charges. For more fun with the theme, add a magic roll so that the user doesn't always get exactly what he is trying to pull from the hat. Also make the user wear a kilt to recharge the item if men wearing dresses isn't socially accepted in the campaign city. Food pulled from the hat is nutritious to eat, but like everything else pulled from the hat, never lasts more than a day before evaporating into thin air. (I liked giving my players Happy Meals and carbonated soda, for example, rather than roast beef and wine.) Riding Crop of Summoning Batman - Note: a "batman" is a term referring to the personal servant of a military officer. Make sure the players discover the name long before discovering what the riding crop actually does.

As for who committed the crime, if Eros's villa was on Earth, as a character, I'd suspect either a resurgent C.L.O.W.N. or the campaign's knock-off Star Sapphire villain who is powered and motivated by love. There's also a chance the crime was committed by a trickster god or by the love deity of a rival pantheon who is jealous of how much attention the Greek gods get in modern culture. If I were the GM, I'd prefer the trickster god angle with most of the arrow incidents being a cover for him shooting the single target he is most wanting to bedevil.

My characters tend to be of the rational thought/research variety. 1) My first instinct as Kid Crane is that using the bow and arrows effectively would mean that we would be looking to compile a list of all known villains and heroes who have archery skills. 2) Since the theft was from a god, I'd also compile a list of those who had mythology ties or enough mystical knowledge to be able to track a god to his lair. 3) If the villa is in a unique location, such as extra-dimensional, I'd compile a list of those who could reach the location without outside assistance. 4) Since the use of the bow and arrows is happening in the campaign city rather than elsewhere, I'd look more closely at those who typically operate in or near the campaign city. 5) The crime is rather light-hearted, so I'd look more closely at pranksters rather than those motivated by greed, revenge, or who are stone-cold killers. Cross-referencing those factors, I'd probably come up with a list of likely suspects. From there, I'd have some idea of where and how to investigate and find the specific individual. And if I find one of them and he isn't the culprit, I'd lean on him hard to get him to cough up the names of any new "players" who might fit the M.O. I'd also try to get an accurate count from Eros of how many arrows were stolen, then subtract the number of arrows already used so I'd have an idea of how bad the situation might get if it continues. I'd also see if Eros could help out with any alternative ways to track the arrows. For example, he might have a contact or a favor he could use to point us in the right direction but is just reluctant to use it when he can get our help for free. There's certainly other Greek gods who specifically have a "hunter" skill set and he's probably got supernatural friends beyond that. If the team has to split up at any point, Kid Crane would attempt to pair them off in a way that mitigates the effects of them accidentally falling in love with each other then doing something they'd regret after the spell wears off. For example, I wouldn't pair my heterosexual under-aged armor hero with Dr. Nobody who is a curmudgeonly middle-aged man (because of the sexuality angle would be traumatic to my under-aged character if something were to happen between them and because the two of them don't get along at the best of times, and because Dr. Nobody doesn't know my character's identity and wouldn't keep it secret from the team if he learned it. Those are roleplaying in-character problems rather than problems between the players themselves.) Edit: As ATW (Armored Technology Warrior), I'd do much the same thing. But he has links to the fanatical Worlds Freedom Alliance whose goal is to give unlimited Earth and alien technology to the masses, they think that a lack of technology causes all social, economic, and political problems. So he'd try to end up with the bow and arrows then funnel them to the WFA to see if Eros's gear can be reverse engineered and distributed freely to everyone. And if it can't be reverse engineered, the WFA would try to use the remaining arrows strategically to promote their cause (and incidentally cause problems for the heroes). For example, getting Dr. Destroyer to fall in love with the president of the WFA who convinces him to release all of his decades of research and tech designs onto the internet would be something which would almost overnight boost the world's technology level.

That could trigger the rush to build a whole new tourism industry! And people complain about the "ugly American" tourists....

The complication is fine as it is, your first sentence answered all of my questions: no light source available other than ambient heat and her powers can't be used to fend off her Susceptibility. If her powers could have been used to stop the Susceptibility, then she'd only be at risk while knocked unconscious in a darkened area or when asleep. That wouldn't have been worth an uncommon, in my opinion, since she would have just learned to use a night light. Sorry if I sometimes seem nit-picky about how powers work but I like to visualize the character as if she's being used against heroes and villains in my worlds and the first thing that often happens is that I run into these kinds of questions.

"Completely replacing the affected body parts with the body parts of another person" as the "cure" to a Transform seems more than a little bit like the player trying to abuse the system, to me at least. I can't say that I'm familiar with the writeups of a ton of 6e characters, but if a player submitted this power to me, I'd insist on replacing that "transplant" portion with something a wee bit more commonly found in the world. I've always taken the "can be cured by a transplant" as a given for the special effects of most Transforms which affect someone's body. I mean, if a villain's poison Transforms my body into being a paralyzed body, using Dr. Nobody's mind-switch gizmo to put my mind into someone else's body gets rid of the poison Transform on my character even if that Transform didn't specifically say it could be cured by a transplant. I'm curious to know how you envision this Susceptibility working. As far as her eyes are concerned, she would be in total darkness any time there was no light visible to her eyes. On the other hand, her powers can generate infrared light which her eyes cannot perceive. I could argue that at any time she's in an environment which is above absolute zero that her surrounding are emitting infrared light (mainly because her surroundings are literally doing that : ) ) so her body would be exposed to light even if her eyes could not perceive that particular wavelength. So how "total" does the "total darkness" have to be? And does using her powers to create various frequencies of light stop the Susceptibility from kicking in? Because if they do, I'd have a problem with this complication being at the uncommon level. I like the idea of this but you don't need to buy the personal immunity considering how many points she's already dumped into Flash Defense. You could use that +1/4 to buy the END to zero or get some other advantage. I've wanted to build a character who uses a power like this as a damage shield (or perhaps triggered by being hit or grappled in melee if the damage shield advantage isn't being used in whatever version I'm playing). It'd be a nasty surprise to anyone trying to go hand-to-hand with her and I don't believe that building the power in that manner wouldn't use up her phase when it triggers. I think of the name for the power built in this form as Flashback. I'd like to mention that I really appreciate use of the "Only Works Against Light" disadvantage since I think that's criminally under-used in builds and is appropriate for the vast majority of SFX of Flash Defense. I've got a mage whose Flash attack consists of conjured rotten fruit flung into the face of the target. Sorry but your Flash Defense goggles shouldn't work against a rotten watermelon being momentarily stuck on your head or a flock of bats being in your face, etc. Having said all of that, I like Aetheria...and may be in love with Ultragirl.

I find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea of a fighter pilot who has a code vs killing.

Fillory from the TV show "The Magicians". Fillory magically has a minute amount of opium suspended in the air, which tends to make the residents slightly euphoric and is disorienting to visitors. I also love their library system.

Okay, I see what you're doing now. Thanks. I think you could leave out the word "Horizontal" in the limitation description since I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to apply the power to the side of a building to affect wall-crawlers and climbers. I like the "-5 to Characteristic Roll or Skill Roll" version since it would apply to things like Combat Driving skill rolls which is very flavorful for the power (cars skidding out of control on the ice, etc.).

Why run out of STUN or BODY either? Everything in character-building is a trade off. Combats for your character are unlikely to ever last for 10 turns (60 phases for your character), you are going to win or lose (or draw) long before that point so buying an extravagantly large END which you're not going to get use out of seems like a waste compared to other things which you character could have. And as Mr. R pointed out, you've already built your character so that you can reduce the amount of END which you are choosing to spend each phase without seriously gimping what you're doing and go far beyond 10 turns. So shifting some points out of REC/END into something different might give your character some additional options. A few potential ideas: Breakfall (for those inevitable flying mishaps. It could instead be done something along the lines of a 1m Flight (OAF, 0 END, persistent, only to hover or reduce velocity from hurtling through the air, triggered by becoming unconscious) Cramming KS: Known Superbeings and Their Powers (always handy for a hero though you might skip this through diligent research plus her Eidetic Memory) PS: Writer (if she cares to be a published scientist) Additional science skills so she can use her Inventor skill more effectively in whatever inventions you envision her making (though you might could get around part of that bottleneck through Cramming plus some added time). Weaponsmith if the Inventor skill is going to be used to make weapons. SS: Cryonics is a classic for an ice character. SS: Medicine, Microbiology, Pharmacology, Immunology, Genetic Engineering, etc. if you care to build on her current list of sciences. More than the base level of Money. She comes from a wealthy family and can move in high society but doesn't have wealth, at least at the moment. Nothing wrong with the base level of money but if she wants to continue to operate in High Society when out of costume, it'll be easier if she has access to enough wealth to outfit herself properly. And inventing things is certainly easier when you can afford to buy the parts that you need. Enhanced Senses (perhaps some vision capability and radio?). Infrared Perception would make sense as part of her power set but if you wanted a sense as a gadget, you could have anything. Flash Defense

"DEX" and "movement" in game terms don't interact closely enough to make it instantly clear to me what the power does. Are you trying to communicate that 1) if a person is standing on a surface which has been iced over that the person should be considered to have -6 DEX? That would be fairly straightforward but it would see odd to me to always penalize someone's juggling ability or sleight of hand skill because they're standing on ice. Or to penalize a ranged energy projector's position in the combat order (especially since her standing on naturally-formed ice would not, I think?). 2) Or that only people who are trying to move on the surface have -6 DEX but that the moving person's penalty applies to anything which they attempt to do? Vastly different effects than the first possibility but at least standing jugglers wouldn't be penalized as much as the running jugglers. 3) Or that people on that surface have -6 DEX but only for the purposes of movement? There's probably some applications other than acrobatics but I can't think of others offhand.... 4) Or something else?

If your character is immortal and has earned 1 point per month on average for the last 2000 years, you're well over 20,000 points. (And that's not even dealing with Egyptian gods which have been around in excess of 6000 years.) I'd imagine such a character got most of his earned points doled out as contacts, favors, and languages (which are now dead) though.

No, it matters that you were deliberately rude to me in three posts in a row because you couldn't bear to take part in a polite discussion. That is all that really matters

I usually get my ideas from the rules as well which is why I cut-and-pasted from the chart. In any case, we are still comparing the slightly increased cost of an OAF smoke grenade plus OAF vision goggles (which are good for other things such as seeing what is happening at a distance in poor lighting) against 17 points spent on Combat Sense.

A man-eating lion escaped earlier this week onto the Harvard University campus. Unfortunately, it starved to death before authorities could locate it.

DARKNESS TABLE Cost Per 5 1m Radius Darkness Affects One or more Targeting Senses or Sense Groups

Here's the formula: Smoke Bomb (affects normal vision) variations: 5 Infrared Perception Here's another: 5 Nightvision And another: 5 Ultraviolet Perception COMBAT SENSE Cost: 15 CP for a base 9 + (INT/5) roll; +1 to roll per 1 CP; +2 CP to make the ability a Sense

Been there, done that, bought the comic book.

They completely lost me when they talked about making an Aunt May prequel spin-off major motion picture.

If you want the friendship to happen without any effort on the character's part (no skill rolls and no meeting the person or talking to him involved), you are looking at Mind Control or Transform area of effect, continuous, etc. If it's just that he makes friends of everyone he meets, buy the appropriate PRE and social skills so that he doesn't blow his rolls. Give him Well-Connected so he can turn his friends into contacts cheaply.