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dsatow

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  1. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from eepjr24 in Animal Friendship, dogs only...   
    i'd give you probably a -1 lim.  As noted, it doesn't summon nor communicate with them.  It doesn't really mind control them, just makes them friendly.  But then again, I usually run supers games and a 1d6-2d6K bite usually can be ignored.
  2. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from RDU Neil in The Unluck Is Strong In This One   
    Reminds me of my first ever D&D game in 1979.  I roll up a fighter with good stats.  We explore a tower.  I see webs in the ceiling, get out my sword ready to attack any giant spiders that came out.  I missed by a mile, get bit, need to roll a saving throw vs. Poison at +2, critically fumble, was allowed to roll again (being my first time playing), critically fumble again and die on the spot with 1 hp of damage and a failed poison check.  Total game time, 5 minutes.
  3. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Ninja-Bear in Toying with a weapon idea   
    I know this isn't what you were originally thinking, but I had a villain with a vertigo power.  I'd like to note before going on that most GMs hate the mechanic and players definitely do when its applied to them.
     
    My Vertigo villain was dangerous because he drained Speed.  It had limitation only affecting those beings with inner ear balancing organs (thus it wouldn't drain the speed of machines or things like jellyfish).  The loss of speed was attributed to feeling dizzy/nauseated and not acting.
  4. Haha
    dsatow reacted to Greywind in Scarecrow: Need a twist   
    He looks like Bruce Boxleitner.
  5. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from BoloOfEarth in Scarecrow: Need a twist   
    An invisible teleport triggered to block, dodge or dive for cover.  I used this for Naruto style ninja.  In this case the PC thinks he's hit the scarecrow who explodes into straw parts and reforms hidden from view.
     
    If it has a pumpkin head, you could have it create pumpkin head bombs aka from the legend of sleepy hollow.  If the head is made of a stuffed bag, you can have a no range attack based on the scarecrow grabbing the victim and having maggots pour out of the eyes and mouth holes onto the character.  Even if it doesn't do a lot of damage, the visual description should make the player squirm.
     
    You can have it be dismember-able, which results in summoning animated body parts to attack (like the arms flying off to attack the player).  
     
    Finally, you can give it a burning damage shield only if hit with a burning attack.  So someone striking it with lightning would cause it to become inflamed giving it a damage shield.
  6. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from PhilFleischmann in Rethinking Growth   
    I've two things I dislike about growth in 6th ed.  
    1) The disadvantage for height penalties and the weight penalties are disproportionate to the power.  Say you are playing Gi-Ant Man from Captain America: Civil War.  Using the growth power you are effectively huge or larger, so your effective DCV drops by 6 or more and all you get for compensation is 9 non-resistant PD and ED?
    2) The cost jump.  If you are playing a 6DC to about 10DC game, growth sort of works out.  But at a higher level, there is a huge jump in cost.
     
    I've basically found, you do a lot better using multiform for size changing.  For 90 points, you could pay for a 400 point character with 4 different sizes and not pay end for the power. 
  7. Like
    dsatow reacted to eepjr24 in "On Your Feet, Soldier!"   
    I would probably just add the additional die of healing, linked to the first heal (-3/4), with a custom limitation Does not restore stun, only removes Stunned Condition (-2), Cannot be pushed (-1/4) and Incantations (-1/4), Full Phase (-1/2). That brings the total cost to 2 points, a reasonable cost for it I think.
     
    - E
  8. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Amorkca in How big a Limitation would you say this is?   
    I'd just count it as a floating location (though its not floating) and make the teleport only to fixed locations.
     
    I had a character which was a bit of a scaredy cat and set their triggered floating teleport point right behind the brick when ever she saw herself being attacked.  This blew up in her face when she was on the edge of the explosion and the brick was in the center.
  9. Thanks
    dsatow reacted to Brian Stanfield in Money   
    I think the main difference between "money" and "lifestyle" in these regional examples can be expressed like this: If I have $5 million I could build a mansion and retire with a very comfortable (maybe not lavish, but close) lifestyle on a vast acreage in the wine country of Southern Illinois. I work for one of these people and see it every day. If, however, I have $5 million in the wine country of Southern California I wouldn't even be able to buy the land, let alone develop it. Money is, after all, money.  "Lifestyle" makes more than a semantic difference here, being the product of the same amount of money.
     
    Conversely, I've stayed at a friend's family home which was affordably built in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge before any other house, and the community grew around it. It is now so valuable that they can't even conceive of selling it. The money changed around the property, but the lifestyle remains the same. This sort of distinction is of course campaign dependent, so it is a rather relative term, but I believe that the point is that tying a specific dollar amount to a particular lifestyle is problematic. Living modestly in Belvedere is much different than living modestly in Des Moines, and living a lavish lifestyle is equally different and not dependent on the specific dollar amount. 
  10. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Brian Stanfield in Money   
    Money in points either is too expensive or cheap depending on how it is used.  I've seen people buy 15 pts in wealth in Champions and then try to buy their way out of problems (ex: Why work for the supervillain when you can work for me with free medical and dental?).
     
    Personally, I think it should probably be renamed to Lifestyle.  You can have a destitute(-15), poor(-10), lower class(-5), middle class(0), upper class(5), wealthy(10), or super wealthy(15) lifestyle rather than tying it to an amount of money.
     
     
     
  11. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Vanguard in Money   
    Lifestyle changes the direction of the perk and comes with several advantages in game.  It releases its value as a quantitative money function and changes it more towards a role playing/character flavor aspect.
     
    Wealth as it is written is a hard currency thing in US dollars by definition.  $100,000 a year in the US is Well Off in most places, but probably not in San Francisco, Manhattan, etc.  In places like Madagascar or El Salvador, $100,000 a year would be considered quite wealthy.
     
    It removes a modern monetary constrain so that the perk can be used in a variety scenarios.  Wealth has a numerical connotation which may be difficult to translate into certain scenarios.  In a fantasy setting, is the king wealth or filthy rich?  In a sci-fi scenario, is that Ksafkwectian average or wealthy because he servants?  Lifestyle denotes how much hardship vs. comfort a person has in their day to day living.  It represents how many options are open to this person in this society.
     
  12. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Vanguard in Money   
    Money in points either is too expensive or cheap depending on how it is used.  I've seen people buy 15 pts in wealth in Champions and then try to buy their way out of problems (ex: Why work for the supervillain when you can work for me with free medical and dental?).
     
    Personally, I think it should probably be renamed to Lifestyle.  You can have a destitute(-15), poor(-10), lower class(-5), middle class(0), upper class(5), wealthy(10), or super wealthy(15) lifestyle rather than tying it to an amount of money.
     
     
     
  13. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from drunkonduty in Money   
    Actual you can buy fighter jets, just not US ones which I think have contracted clauses preventing resale.
    http://www.andhrawishesh.com/telugu-film-movies/102-ap-headlines/24052-sirish-bharadwaj-get-bail.html
     
     
  14. Thanks
    dsatow got a reaction from iamlibertarian in Still Confused By UBO   
    If a VPP has a power with the Focus limitation and is given to another character and that character does not give the focus back, the points stay assigned.  Steve Long has said in the past that if the gadgeteer wants to reuse those points, they have to go get the focus back. If a VPP has a power with the charges limitation, once the charge is used, those points do not come back until the next day.  Steve Long has stated that for partially used powers, the GM can prorate the points back. Of course, the GM is the final arbiter and can change the ruling as they deem fit, but the rules are in place to prevent using VPP abuse (though VPP is already really abusable).
  15. Thanks
    dsatow got a reaction from unclevlad in Money   
    Lifestyle changes the direction of the perk and comes with several advantages in game.  It releases its value as a quantitative money function and changes it more towards a role playing/character flavor aspect.
     
    Wealth as it is written is a hard currency thing in US dollars by definition.  $100,000 a year in the US is Well Off in most places, but probably not in San Francisco, Manhattan, etc.  In places like Madagascar or El Salvador, $100,000 a year would be considered quite wealthy.
     
    It removes a modern monetary constrain so that the perk can be used in a variety scenarios.  Wealth has a numerical connotation which may be difficult to translate into certain scenarios.  In a fantasy setting, is the king wealth or filthy rich?  In a sci-fi scenario, is that Ksafkwectian average or wealthy because he servants?  Lifestyle denotes how much hardship vs. comfort a person has in their day to day living.  It represents how many options are open to this person in this society.
     
  16. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Grailknight in Money   
    Money in points either is too expensive or cheap depending on how it is used.  I've seen people buy 15 pts in wealth in Champions and then try to buy their way out of problems (ex: Why work for the supervillain when you can work for me with free medical and dental?).
     
    Personally, I think it should probably be renamed to Lifestyle.  You can have a destitute(-15), poor(-10), lower class(-5), middle class(0), upper class(5), wealthy(10), or super wealthy(15) lifestyle rather than tying it to an amount of money.
     
     
     
  17. Like
    dsatow reacted to unclevlad in tracking/hacking cell phones   
    To track, Radio Perception is the obvious basis. 
     
    After that it's a matter of special effects.  The quasi-Mentalist approach would be Mind Scan, Mind Link, Mind Control, all affecting phones rather than minds.  The tech basis would be Radio Percept and Transmit, with Discriminatory (to find the right signal out of the sea of numbers) and Targeting (to track the signal to the phone).  The hack is basically no different from hacking a computer over the internet.  Note that probably the Radio Percept/Transmit might need Invis Power Effects to trick the phone to accept the credentials you need to get into the OS and actually do the hack, but if you think that's overthinking this...that's fine.  Remember:  the phone user will have a direct indication that he's receiving data.
     
    I would think there's some source materials that gives some decent examples of hacking a computer.  This shouldn't be easy or quick.
     
     
  18. Like
    dsatow reacted to dmjalund in tracking/hacking cell phones   
    detect sense and target cell phone at range
  19. Like
    dsatow reacted to ghost-angel in Mental Combat & Skill Levels   
    Yes. Overall Skill Levels can be used anywhere.
  20. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from tkdguy in Restaurants   
    The Golden Lotus
     
    The Golden Lotus restaurant is a popular Chinese restaurant featuring Cantonese dishes.  The English language menu serves laughably named dishes as Google translates misunderstands the actual dish name.  The food is quite excellent earning two Michelin stars.  The chef is an 80 year old immigrant from Taiwan who uses two Chinese cleavers for almost all food preparations.  He speaks not a word of English but seems to be able to get his meaning across in the kitchen.  What just about no one knows is that in his 20s, he was a Chinese superhero named "Twin Dragons in the Morning" (Zǎoshang shuānglóng or Shuānglóng for short) who wielded two butterfly swords to take down Chinese Tongs.  Chinese Tong buildings would suddenly catch fire, it occupants beaten and left outside in the morning.  Needless to say, the restaurant is not bothered by the gangs in the neighborhood.  Several wannabe superheroes have tried to train under him, but he has only accepted three students since coming to America, 2 are power martial superheroes in their own right and the third is apprenticing to learn authentic Cantonese delicacies.
  21. Like
    dsatow reacted to Hugh Neilson in Damage Shield   
    I believe you need Constant and Surface, and can now apply No Range since it cannot target anything but yourself.  With range, I should be able to put the damage shield on Foxbat's Ping Pong Ball Gun at 30 paces.
  22. Like
    dsatow got a reaction from Sorloc in Damage Shield   
    You still need to buy it constant (+1/2) if you want it to last more than an instant.
  23. Thanks
    dsatow got a reaction from knasser2 in Barrier which repairs itself.   
    If you are using barrier in 6th ed, then simply recreate the barrier.  It will be recreated at full BODY.  If you want a slower BODY recovery, you can always take healing, BODY only, usable every turn or regeneration usable on others, barrier only.
  24. Like
    dsatow reacted to unclevlad in Ablative (-1/2) & (-1) Difference?   
    At -1/2, you're only counting Body to see if it deteriorates.  At -1, you're counting Stun...which means, practically every regular attack will wear it away.
     
    reference:  6E147.  Second paragraph discussing Ablative.
  25. Like
    dsatow reacted to Christopher R Taylor in AVAD Life support discusion   
    Its going to depend a lot on the genre and setting.  For example, resistant defenses are very rare in an old west frontier game.  But in a modern superhero game or a sci fi game, they might be fairly common.  So you decide based on your game more than the official chart as an inflexible set of absolute rules.  Life Support vs heat and cold can be a matter of the right kind of clothing, so that might not be as rare particularly in a sci fi game.  On the other hand, it might be virtually nonexistent in a game set in bronze age Sumeria.
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