Clonus

Re: The Hero Forum's Fattest Man in Comics!

Ego the Living Planet. He's so fat he's spherical.

Re: Astrogator's Handbook

So if we discover some weird organism living on a gas giant' date=' the implication is that it represents an even more common class of life form?[/quote']

 

Gas Giants vary considerably in their characteristics, far more than the differences between Venus, Earth and Mars so it would be a bit of a stretch to assume that everything from Gliese B to Uranus is a suitable starting ground for life. The real question is not whether life can possibly exist in a given body, except for the purposes of would-be bioformers, but more whether it can start there.

Re: Mutant Detectors

The question with mutant detectors is always "what are they detecting?". What Marvel ended up with was a distinctive brain wave pattern that only people with a certain genetic complex generate, said genetic complex also being one that ensures that you get superpowers, with the precise powers you get apparently being the product of other genes. Alternative you can imagine a kind of n-ray ala Star Trek tricorders that bounces back with lots of information about the genetic makeup of whatever it hit.

By and large though, the whole "mutant" concept works better if you abandon the radiation accident as a separate power source category. That doesn't mean you'd be stuck with mutants and only mutants of course, you'd still have magical transformations, super soldier serums, surgical enhancement, martial artists in touch with their ki, aliens, genetically engineered symbionts or whatever. But anyone who "gains" powers from random exposure to life-threatening phenomena probably already had them in the first place just waiting for the right circumstances to manifest phenotypically. Of course such "latents" might still be harder to detect.

Re: Worst. Hero. Ever.

 

I also dislike the character because he feels like he was created backwards. IMO Cable seems like a character who's background was written after he was created (and already seen print) to substantiate the character and his all-to-unrelated sets of powers.

 

Cable went through a long period in which the only thing anyone, including those putting out the comic book, knew about him was what he looked like. Everything else about him was decided after the fact.

Re: Grandiose Schemes

Yep. Another villain recruited him to bring back Aladdin's Lamp from another dimension' date=' but Foxbat kept it for himself to become The Greatest Villain Of All Time. (In the adventure, the Lamp provided unlimited wishes, [/quote']

 

Which is accurate of course. In other Arabian Nights tales a djinn released from a bottle is free but may choose to offer you wishes for his release, generally 3 or 1. He may also choose to just kill you for taking so long. In Aladdin, however, the djinn is the slave of the lamp and grants an unlimited number of wishes to whosoever holds it without ever gaining his freedom.

Re: Vitals

 

Some people like to maintain their euphemisms and say that it only refers to "vital" spots located at various points on the body, even if covered by other hit locations or specifically covered by armor pieces that cover the groin. This is acceptible I suppose, as much of the source material for many genres don't like to admit that the upstanding, heroic characters even have any part of their bodies below the waist and above the legs.

 

And further notice that a Head Shot does not include location 13. This is not because there is nothing vital in the area of the head.

Head shots are even worse than vitals. As for armour, I note that a "short vest" covers area 13. This doesn't seem consistent with the idea that area 13 is the crotch, rather than the heart and kidneys. Also of course, there's nothing particularly vital in the crotch to explain why you take 2x Body from shots there.

Sleeping Beauty

The characters discover a century-old wrecked space yacht. In it, along with a lot of other junk some of which is valuable, is a cryogenic suspension capsule containing a beautiful girl. When the players realise that she's apparently the missing rightful heir from back then and in theory her claim to the throne supercedes that of the unpopular current Emperor descended from her cousin...what will they do?

Re: Resistance is Futile...

The intelligence is too high. Borg Drones are dumb as well as slow, presumably because their brains have little computing capacity left after contributing most of it to the Collective. Also they probably could adapt to bullets.

Re: Hero (and Villain) Poseurs...

There was a magazine article which featured a group of Inferior Five influenced wannabes like the Weasel (who had a gimmicked Ferrari that was mostly notable for crashing every time he kicked in the afterburner) and Poefellow (Who had a "trained" raven that would randomly poop on any participants in a fight). I used them once.

Re: Worst. Hero. Ever.

Incidentally, Superman is nothing like the most powerful character out there. Furthermore, there are several other characters at exactly the same power level and with the exact same power sets.

 

Presumably they are lame too.

 

There goes the Spectre, Mon-El, Supergirl, Power Girl, Dr Fate, Captain Marvel... The Flash should probably go too... Johnny Thunder...

 

Well no, not Power Girl. She only has a tiny fraction of Superman's power. She's lame because her breasts have turned into a silly joke.

Re: Grandiose Schemes

Reset the cesium master clock for the United States, screwing up things like railroad scheduling all over the country, in order to pop open a time lock.

Spread a world-wide disease carried by women that only kills men.

Accelerate an asteroid to relativistic velocities aimed at an inhabited planet.

Re: DEX levels in your campaign.

DEX shouldn't have a connection to combat. The ability to flip a coin through your fingers or shuffle a deck of cards impressively isn't going to help you land or avoid a punch. .

But the ability to dance will.

Re: DEX levels in your campaign.

Nothing wrong with that. I think we've got a workable system here, but I would propose a couple more changes...

 

DEX: base = 10, cost = 1:1

SPD: base = 2, not connected to DEX

CV: base = 0, not connected to DEX or EGO

 

What do you think?

Too extreme for me. I want DEX to have some connection to physical combat and I wouldn't be comfortable with the default CV being 0.

Re: The Hero Forum's Hottest Man in Comics.

The hottest man in comics? Gotta be the Human Torch.

Re: DEX levels in your campaign.

And Superman had powers at the time and actually 'tried' to dodge?

I'm not talking about actually trying to dodge but just Supe's usual day to day DCV, which totally tanks. And yes, Superman had powers when Jimmy Olsen knocked him out with a thrown rock. (It was a rock from Kandor.)

Re: The Hero Forum's Hottest Woman in Comics.

Susan Storm, the Original Marvel MILF

 

Personally, I just can't see it.

Re: DEX levels in your campaign.

 

Superman with powers should have a higher DEX than Batman.

He doesn't, though. Can't dodge to save his life, as he proved when he needed to dodge to save his life. Jimmy Olson once took him out by throwing a rock at his head.

Re: DEX levels in your campaign.

The problem stems from the benchmarks. If 31+ is superhuman then where are all the superhuman characters in the CU? Where's the Spider-mans and Nightcrawlers? They exist in the genre but not in the CU.

The thing is, Spider-Man's dexterity really is only marginally better than Cap's. He's fast but his ability to connect and avoid being tagged just doesn't radically outclass Cap. Same thing with Nightcrawler. His acrobatics are over-the-top, but his fighting ability is nothing special for an agile character.

Re: DEX levels in your campaign.

I don't think you're noticing the lightning reflexes. The Green Arrow homage has a 26 dex for going first when using his bow. The way the CU is set up [with 30 mostly being the dex ceiling] a 26 gives him a pretty quick on the initiative.

 

I generally consider the CU dexs to be a sore point for me. There's too many people with 20s and not enough with dexs over 30. The CU states that a 30 dex is the human pinnacle but then doesn't give us any character examples with super-human dexs.

That's solidly based on the original source material. In comic books, characters like Batman, and Captain America are almost never overmatched in terms of their ability to hit, dodge and manuever because if they were, then they'd be worthless. The only exception's are certain super-speedsters, and even then their ability to connect is usually not equal to their elusiveness.

Re: Disturbing Character premises...

Years ago, I ran an ogre in a Runequest game. In the Runequest game, Ogres appear just like normal people, albeit rather gifted ones, tending toward higher strength, more intelligent, better-looking, etc. The problem, however, is that the food source for Ogres is the flesh of intelligent humanoids. . .

Ah yes, I remember the idea I had for transporting my Runequest PCs to an alternate universe where humans were extinct, but ogres weren't... They didn't just make that up out of whole cloth incidentally. For example, in the earliest version of "Sleeping Beauty" to be recorded, the story doesn't end when she wakes up. Instead she marries the King, goes off with him to be his wife but has mother-in-law problems. Specifically, her mother-in-law is an ogre with an appetite for the two babies our narcoleptic heroine gave birth to while comatose. Her children are saved, the ogress is killed and Sleeping Beauty lives happily ever after...with her at least half-ogre husband who rapes comatose girls, speaking of "disturbing".

Re: WWYCD: Dead Enemies are no fun.

You have a great night celebrating a successful capture of a powerdul group of supervillains. You go to sleep. When you wake up in the morning, you see on the news your greatest nemesis is dead. MURDERED. And the methood of killing matches your exact power set. All the evidence points to one person being the killer.

 

Your super ID is the number one suspect.

 

The police have put our an apb on your Super ID. Arrest on sight.

 

WWYCD???

Hellfire would switch to an alternate ID and try to only use her physical strength and not her fire. If only she didn't have Bad Temper and a compulsion to flame on every time she loses it.

(And yes, that response should reveal my Secret Identity to people with great memories. Curses.)

Re: Splatproofing megascale flight

Yup. What's next' date=' all energy projectors have to pay for Safe in _______ to prevent making themselves ill with their powers, [/quote']

 

Well personally I've never designed an energy projector who didn't have some kind of protection versus the energy they use...

Re: Worst. Hero. Ever.

I submit that Superman isn't even a hero. That word insinuates doing something despite the harm that may befall you.

The fact that Superman doesn't run into opponents who can cause him physical harm on an everyday basis doesn't mean he never runs into opponents who can cause him physical harm. Even in the old days he ran into into enough opponents packing kryptonite or magic or Mongul's bulging "Kryptonians are wimps" muscles to ensure that his career wasn't entirely risk-free. And of course to me "hero" merely implies admirability. While putting your life on the line to save others is certainly one way to be admirable, a guy who on a day to day basis saves thousands of lives just because he can and doesn't abuse the power that lets him do that, is admirable to me even if he never runs into anything that can pose a threat to him.