archer

Eliminate one threat and another takes its place. It's the one constant of the universal laws.

Crouching Tigger, Hidden Pooh

Jade Fang should always remember that occidents happen.

I would think that most people who end up in combat often would naturally seek to become more efficient in combat, out of a sense of self-preservation if nothing else.

The brand of chocolate chips I used to use had three major ingredients: cocoa beans, vanilla beans, and some other bean that I can't remember. Had one night I was making dinner and didn't have a side dish so the question of "what are we having with the chicken" was answered off the top of my head a deadpan "three bean salad". And I served the chicken with a bowl of chocolate chips straight out of the bag.

That music video was better than the first one. But all it really managed to do was to make me irritated again at how poor the tactics were that the good guys used. C'mon guys, I've watched it a dozen times but you keep making the same mistakes!

It's always an advantage when players think in terms of descriptions because it'd potentially help roleplayIng. The GM on the other hand, has to understand and remember dozens of powers available on the field and think about what they each do. That's very difficult to do in a system that counts numbers like HERO rather than running a system like FUDGE. I've lost the rest of my post three times in a row so I guess I'm just not supposed to type it and I guess I'll just end it here.

I'm no expert but to give opinions... If it's any help, I'd cost "Only against Foci" as a zero limitation in a fantasy game. Since the opponents are unlikely to have hand-to-hand combat superpowers as in Champions, everything except beasts will be attacking with foci when in hand-to-hand combat. But I'll admit I've never liked powers that are essentially "the power blows off all the opponent's clothing and armor and leaves him standing there naked and defenseless". This whole concept is just a variation on that but instead of standing there defenseless, he'd be standing there offenseless. If you are going to take out the character, kill him or fight him and force a surrender. Don't just humiliate him by having him stand there conscious but unable to do anything. YMMV As for damage shields damaging foci automatically, as I understand it, they're supposed to work like that. But almost every character has shoes, socks, pants, belt, pouches, shirt, hat, armor of some sort, miscellaneous equipment of every sort, plus various weapons. It's a real pain in the butt for the GM to decide what actually gets toasted and which items survive(the GM at that point in the story might not even have worked out what the guy has on him, much less figure out what might have survived). So I've seen those effects of the damage shield ignored as much as followed to the letter of the rules. And players usually don't complain because all of those miscellaneous items are the kind of things most players call "Loot" and it's not much fun when it gets destroyed (at least when I'm playing). For the force field "Only works against weapons that are shattered by the damage shield". it depends on how likely the damage shield is to shatter commonly-used weapons. If the campaign has everyone able to afford and use steel swords and the damage shield shatters steel swords, that's not much of a limitation. But if the damage shield will reliably shatter only wooden clubs and the shafts of spears while opponents are attacking you mostly with two-handed steel swords and giant mauls, that limitation would be highly limiting the power's usefulness.

I'd be reluctant to let a "destroys weapons" damage shield be part of my game because most humanoid fighters are rubbish without their weapons. Not to mention that destroying a sword in a second that it takes a week to forge seems a little over-powered and could tilt an economy out of whack if it happens very often. A fighter couldn't earn enough in a week by hiring himself out as a guard to be able to buy a replacement sword if mages had access to magic that destroys swords by using a bit of END. And what's the fighter supposed to do when his sword is destroyed? The force field means the mage didn't take significant damage from the first attack and now the fighter's sword is gone. His dagger is going to do even less damage. And if the sword doesn't get through the force field, punching the mage isn't going to do much either. Anyway, killing attack with damage shield would be the way to go to build it, I think. If I allowed it at all, it'd be only in the direction the caster is facing, only for attacks that he's aware of, can't be used as part of a grab maneuver, and would make the mage pay full END cost (rather than allowing END Battery, charges, or buying Reduced END Cost with the power). Using it would need to seriously limit mage's ability or the player will run the shield 24 hours a day. I'd recommend also that the shield only work against non-magical weapons. Any spell that's strong enough to shatter steel every time is going to shatter WAY too many magical swords.

Each limitation would be basically unique to that character's version of the power and you would have to read and remember accurately exactly how each particular power works based off of that description. My memory is shot to hell due to multiple severe head injuries over the course of my life, and being old isn't exactly helping. I can't imagine trying to run Champions where each of four players has eight unique descriptions of how each player's eight unique powers work and each of their four opponents have eight unique powers. That's 64 unique power descriptions right there, not counting cops, PRIMUS agents, and minions...and that's a hell of a lot less complicated than many battlefields. I personally find using keywords much more convenient than remembering lists of descriptions. Yeah, some of that is because I'm used to keywords from playing RPG's and collectible card games. But the companies which make those games probably started using keywords in the first place in order to try to avoid information overload. 2 cents

I'm not a big fan of "the original character concept as stated on day one of the campaign is the only direction the character can grow". In real life, if I want to be a bodybuilder I can do that. I can learn lockpicking or sleight of hand. If I have a close call, I can decide its a good idea to learn self-defense or first aid or convert to a religion and learn all about it so my soul doesn't go to some unpleasant place. I love reading and researching things but if all my friends were having fun getting into brawls in bars and I ended up alone doing nothing over and over again, I'd probably end up at the bar at some point and need to learn some self-defense really quickly. What I thought my life would be when I was 18 years old and the skills I would gain as I saw things developing in my life was maybe 15-20% accurate. I don't see why my character in the game shouldn't develop in response to what happens to him just as my own life has developed in response to my own experiences. Honestly, how many people really end up exactly with the life they thought they'd have?

While I think you are right at the most basic level, one of the toughest thing for a new GM is to figure out what's reasonable and what isn't for his campaign. By removing a detailed list of recommended limitations on powers, you'd leave a lot of GM's guessing wrong on approving player characters and wrong on how strong the opposition might be when writing them up. An experienced GM could do all of that in his sleep. A new GM might ruin a campaign and/or drive off players before he gets it right. And under current rules. I can look at a power with its list of advantages and disadvantages from some character in your campaign as see exactly what it is supposed to do and how effective it is compared to another character's powers from your campaign. I don't see how you could distill down any description to get that information across as compactly and easily as it is in the current system.

Needs to take care not to misspell the name of that last villain on the cover.

Do you also want notification if I just send them a sternly-worded letter? My armory is depleted at the moment, along with my uranium.

Ancient Aliens marathon FTW!!!

With or without the politicians?

Starhawk used to be a much cooler character back before they explained his/her origins.

Every time I see food on that scale, I wonder if there'd be any leftovers for breakfast the next day after my family has it for dinner.

Most are but some are towed: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/the-many-failures-and-few-successes-of-zany-iceberg-towing-schemes/243364/ (Yes, we know, camels are toed as well.)

He didn't specify what edition and some editions have climbing as a STR skill.

In Champions I tend to play gadgeteers or powered armor heroes. Or a mutant who pretends his powers come from overly-elaborate armor which has minimal real systems. I also tend to play characters who are highly competent in their fields, whatever those fields happen to be, rather than kids or average people who happen to have powers. Think about the difference between Mr. Fantastic and Plastic Man. When something is going wrong and you need a professional, no one thinks, "Gee, I wish I could consult with Plastic Man!" In low fantasy, I tend to play a low-powered wizard who's a scoundrel looking for the edge needed to run a scam. He might spend his free time fixing the roof of the orphanage to get in good with the priest who gives him an introduction to the mark who is needing help. If the mark isn't needing help naturally, I set up a second scam so that the mark needs to hire someone who is trustworthy. Sometimes the scam is to take down a bad guy or to protect someone. Sometimes the scam is to make sure we get paid more than average by someone who can afford to pay more than he would have otherwise. The money earned usually goes back into worthy causes like buying gear, living well, hiring locals to be servants or cannon fodder, setting up the next scam by giving money to the priest or orphanage in the next town, etc. Though having something going on under someone's nose that they aren't aware of is the source of my character's thrills and much more important than the money involved. In high fantasy, I'll play a highly competent wizard whose goal in life is to be a know-it-all.

The real problem with Canada becoming the big brother is that Canada's population was so small compared to the US during the WWII era. You could fix part of that problem by making Canada the most popular destination for refugees from Europe and Britain. Canada has a large French-speaking population already and plenty of land. The new refugees would probably be the elite and the most skilled since there wouldn't be shipping available to evacuate everyone. Most of the refugees from the Asian theater would probably go to Australia while most of the refugees from the European and Middle East theater would go to Canada. After Germany invades South America, Canada would probably even get refugees from that part of the world. Also in the original timeline, the US occupied Greenland, which was owned by Denmark, in order to keep the Germans from claiming it (the US also offered to outright purchase Greenland in 1946, which would have been very interesting if the sale had gone through). In your timeline, you'd need to have Canada occupy it instead and claim permanent ownership. Iceland was also part of Denmark at the beginning of WWII and didn't claim independence until 1944 even though Denmark was invaded by Germany in 1940. I could see the Allies taking full control of Iceland as the war started to go badly then Canada inheriting it as the last standing Allied power in that part of the world.

Yeah, parkour is acrobatics that people use while moving from place to place. Buy Acrobatics, Climbing, a small bit of extra running, and make sure the character has at least 20 STR and either enough DEX or skills levels to be able to pull off the desired moves.

Here's the 15 most populous cities in the US New York City, NY 8,622,698 (+5.47% increase since the 2010 census) Los Angeles, CA 3,999,759 (+5.46%) Chicago, IL 2,716,450 (+0.77%) Houston, TX 2,312,717 (+10.12%) Phoenix, AZ 1,626,078 (+12.48%) Philadelphia, PA 1,580,863 (+3.59%) San Antonio, TX 1,511,946 (+13.90%) San Diego, CA 1,419,516 (+8.58%) Dallas, TX 1,341,075 (+11.96%) San Jose, CA 1,035,317 (+9.45%) Austin, TX 950,715 (+20.28%) Jacksonville, FL 892,062 (+8.55%) San Francisco, CA 884,363 (+9.83%) Columbus, OH 879,170 (+11.71%) Fort Worth, TX 874,168 (+17.94%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population There's 5 TX cities on the list 4 CA 1 NY 1IL 1 AZ 1 PA 1 FL 1 OH One thing that will play a factor is whether there's an environment that's friendly to the city to grow and physical room for growth. For some reason, Chicago and Philadelphia are currently growing at a much lower pace than the other cities on the list. Another thing that will play an effect is how New York City is obliterated. If it's in a meteor strike, the cause of its destruction would likely be the tidal wave which resulted from a strike somewhere in the Atlantic rather than a random direct hit. So if the city drowned, inland cities would probably reflexively be a more popular destination. Likewise if it's in an invasion from a foreign country, cities which are far from the border would become a more popular option. NYC is the hub of a lot of different industries from fashion, to shipping, to financial. I'd expect that the various industries would fragment and end up in a lot of different places. Chicago would probably pick up the financial because it would still have a functional stock market, for example. East coast port cities would be more likely to pick up shipping than inland cities in the mid-west (for some reason). But as for which city would pick up the most in the aftermath of the disaster, Philadelphia would pick up the most in population because it's the closest for refugees who don't have the financial ability to move with a job. So I'd pick Philadelphia to be the most likely to become Gotham City or Bludhaven. The city which would pick up the most industry would be a Texas city, either Dallas/Fort Worth or San Antonio, mainly since Texas has a much more business-friendly environment than California at this point. Dallas and Forth Worth are close enough together that most people can't tell where one city stops and the other begins without looking at signs. It has two major airports. And it has lots of empty land to continue to expand in every direction. San Antonio and Austin are close enough together that you could commute by car if you really wanted to. Lots of empty land. I think the Mets would end up in San Antonio just because its the largest city without a major league team and it'd probably pick up one of New York's NFL teams as well.

Radar and Sonar sentenced to become lovers for a year? That's harsh, man.