Comic

Re: House Rules Thunderdome - post yours here I only ever have had one House Rule, but it has three parts: 1) You've read the RAW; 2) You've clarified any questions about the RAW with the other players; 3) You've clarified any optional rules, stop-signs, or applications of advantages and limitations questions with the GM. I used to have a fourth part, '4) Have Fun,' but that was more of a coincidence than a rule.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks? How much of an advantage, if it's a workable mechanic at all, would 'Reduced Penetration' be on a defensive power? E.g. Force Field, Reduces Penetration (each attack compared to DEF in two halves, and the amount that gets past is totalled)? If we're looking for new mechanics to reduce Stun Lotto's impact? Not that I approve of fixes like this, but everyone likes to tinker.

Re: Hero's game design secrecy Wait.. *sniff* Are.. are you s-saying... *sniff* .. You don't want to t-talk about OUR RELATIONSHIP?! *WAAAUGH!* What h-have I d-done to deserve this?

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast The important thing is, once a gaming group gets together for the game, to put away the debate and the tinkering and get down to playing. Of course, the playing inevitably involved debate and tinkering, so, uh.. well, I'm sure there's something important somewhere. And what's with the mad-on for chess? It's clearly inferior to Snakes-and-Ladders or Tic-Tac-Toe. Everyone knows that.

Re: CHAR: Tempest I have to admit to being currently bookless, and working from fading memory. As for the good reasons, Tempest being your character, I respect that your design decisions are sound and reflect the concept. I want to thank you for giving me the chance to exercise my inner design-twink a bit on an interestingly built character.

Re: CHAR: Tempest Er, actually, I didn't intend to nuke anything.. I just didn't repeat the parts that I didn't touch, since they were so nicely done already. The Armor was sold back so the total DEF would remain the same. The Casual STR could be gotten to the same cost for 5 more points - 0 END on 30 STR (+1/2) - which would still leave 25 STR that could be pushed point for point, and 30 STR that could be used round after round for free. It means moving the extra points back from skills (1 of the 8 pt Combat levels, 2 of the Breakfall levels), but you could put those seven points into raising his CON to 39 (12 for +6 CON, -1 to leave ED at the same level, Rec would increase to 19, -3 to keep END at the same level, and -2 leaves Stun one pip higher). Then if he does happen to get hit with his FF down, he's still less likely to be CON-Stunned, effectively loses an average of 6 more Stun (since he starts with 1 higher), which he recovers 3 of at the end of phase 12. Sure, he might spend 1 more END per phase, but it'll take him forty turns going all out before he starts burning STUN as END. I do agree that you've done a great job, either way.

Re: Golden Age Superheroes as Pulp Heroes Hrm.. Pulp Groo.. Pulp Groo.. Uhm. Nevermind. Pulp Fantastic Four? Doable, carefully translated and scaled, I suppose. Pulp Spiderman? He's only a shade less Pulp than Daredevil, and DD could definitely be Pulp, so Spiderman could be too. Especially the "I am Spider" sequences in the death of Kraven the Hunter story. Pulp Element Man? He always had the Pulp tone. Maybe make him a mad test-tube-flinging chemist?

Re: Need a name for a section Uncommitted Unlimited?

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast Okay, here goes. Pretend, if you can, you've never seen the Hero system, or at least never encountered any of the things you think I've said so far. Of course there is. There are many. Hedging, diversification, insurance, fallback positions and mitigation are only a few ploys to deal. It's not the actual blind luck that is the issue. It's that the reasonable person will have to respect the blind luck and go through the expense of these mitigating preparations that is. *Edit mine. It's not that KA's are more powerful and having them makes you more effective. Arguably, they just aren't more powerful, but that argument is somewhat 'religious' and can never be resolved by reasoning. There's no reason not to equally respect both sides, with this recognition. So let's skip whether or not the KA is more powerful, because we don't, for the purposes of this discussion, need to settle that argument one way or the other. All we need to agree on is that the reasonable person has the right to treat KA's as more powerful whenever it suits their needs. I can concede that your belief that KA's are more powerful gives you that right. If your belief doesn't allow you to concede that I too have the right to treat KA's as more dangerous, then my argument that KA's (being more wildly variable) are parametric rather than probabilistic should support my good-faith approach to KA's by their parameters (outer limits) rather than by their probabilities. (Btw, do you mean if if you're outmatching in this case? Either way, irrelevant.) More later... An annoying misreading of what I've said. People have the right to see you as a determined killer for taking KA's intrinsically with the mechanic in the same way as they have the right to see you as a healer with the mechanic Aid: Body, or the right to see you as outright abnormal if you take the mechanic Teleport. The nature of KA's is heightened, non-accidental (therefore intentional or depravedly indifferent) lethality, the way the nature of tunneling is to move through the ground. It's not an option to choose or not choose it as a limitation. It's certainly well within the control of the GM to determine the social mores regarding KA's. Set the campaign in Texas, Sparta, ancient Rome or Switzerland, for example, it's a matter of civic duty to be willing to kill for the sake of public order and defense. Set it in most of New England, Belgium, historic Japan outside of certain social classes, and it's not. It's also certainly well within the control of the player to have their character behave in ways that alter the view people take of their character carrying a KA. Act with outstanding and notable restraint in every circumstance, go out of your way to avoid resorting to the KA (even when it could give you an advantage) and make a great show of respecting that it is a KA and not a right to lord your vast superiority over the unarmed masses, and you'll make a heroic impression. The preceding two paragraphs discuss entirely non-mechanical aspects, and could equally apply to arguments about high AP attacks with the Beam limitation, Alteration powers with near-permanent malign effects on others, or any powers that create a substantial hazard. They could apply to peeing on the sidewalk, for that matter. Napolean and Machiavelli both predate Nash, Knight, Ellsberg, and Chuck Norris. They're of historical interest only. Also, both Bonaparte and Nicolo were remarkable for the time they spent in prison after losing. However, your point is sound. As Sun Tzu said, "The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him." So long as you have a choice of who to attack, and you (or I) treat the KA as the superior threat, we ought to remove that threat before any other, if we are able. So long as we have a KA, we can make sure the rational enemy will treat that threat as the priority, and thus more efficiently employ the combination of all our maneuvers and attacks against them. Right. Which is why you're perfectly justified as a rational strategist in treating the 12d6 Normal attack as if it will _probably_ do 36-45 Stun and 10-14 Body. That's because it's Stochastic in its standard deviation, i.e. Probabilistic, or non-deterministic. You'd be irrational to treat this attack in any other way in your overall strategic planning. As a special case, you are justified in small expenditures to mitigate results outside of this expected range. Can't be helped. I'm confusing, when read in haste or without will to research. I know I only ever read my own writing quickly and without study, so I'm always confused by it. Easy to remove the confusion in this. Simplistic and careless reading could of course lead to these conclusions. I seldom bother to check what I've written for clarity. I am an uncharitable writer, and reading me is hard work. Heroes who use KA's could get good, bad or indifferent press. Heroes who use KA's use them in intentional or depraved ways, and ought get the press of the intentional or of the depraved. I also don't care if master villains drop in phase 12 Turn 1, or even before, if the overall campaign is well-developed and the play is fun and the GM prepared. Sure, it can be anti-climatic to win unexpectedly. I guess you'll just have to weep all the way to the victory parade. Are villains supposed to cheat? Meh. I haven't thought so simplistically about my villains in a long time. Cheaters are clearly more villain-like. Villains who are intentional or depraved killers are supposed to be dangerous, and heroes who are not foolhardy respect the dangers they face (whether the villain behind the danger is respectable or not) and are, to me, more heroic. Thanks. I love Comic effects. Wild results allow the interplay of probabilistic and parametric systems, which gives a superior range of game challenges. If you're not in the mood for those challenges, or want to focus on a particular set of them, I'm fully behind you and support it. So long as you're doing it on purpose and realize that it is a limiting approach which may lead to unsatisfying results. The key word is 'seem'. If a KA seems to be a higher-value attack (to you because you believe it is more dangerous, to me because I know it is more chaotic -- chaos being a subset of deterministic or parametric fields) then anyone, hero or villain, will if rational treat them as more dangerous when it suits their needs. Sun Tsu suggests another way to get the same effect: keep your attacks concealed and unknown. Until your opponent knows what you might do, they'll have the same parameterization problem. The difference between your approach and mine is this: your belief that the attack is more dangerous requires you to treat it so even when it may be against your interest, while my categorization of the attack as parameterized means I can in special cases treat it either as more dangerous or as less dangerous. These cases can lead to better strategies. Too inelegant. Not what I mean at all. Non-Probabilistic effects in games take the games to new levels. These aren't necessarily better levels, just different. I love to see people roleplay their characters well. If their character happens to be a hero carrying an industrial laser or a 400 hp chainsaw, then why should that make any difference to me? Meh. House rules. I preferred him in Wooster & Jeeves. I'm glad I could provide you an opportunity to be brilliant yet again, although I completely disagree with your shakier propositions. Okay. Correcting you. I don't hold that position. Never been bored playing Champions, and I can't think of a time I've ever played a character with a KA. I do dislike House Rules as a matter of taste. Takes away from my time spent understanding the campaign world to have to absorb spurious, needless or math-challenged 'improvements' that don't enrich the campaign itself. Intriguing insight. I should've said something like this days ago. Or maybe I did. I get confused reading my own posts. Up until "Bricks step aside." It's also the world of Darkness, Missile Deflection, Invisibility, Shape Shift, taking cover, Movement, Shrinking, Stretching, and the myriad other tactics available for coping with attacks. While Hulk is perfectly capable of soaking the damage of any number of punches, I've seen him dodge in combat. I've seen him missile deflect. I've seen him move-by with superleap to place himself far from an opponent after the end of his action so they couldn't retaliate. This is pretty much the archetypal Brick. If he can do these things, why can't my Champions Brick on a smaller scale? And again, it's not so inelegant as you contend. There are plenty of reasons to have higher DEFs that fall far short of being able to cope with the maximum Stun of KA's. For instance, to cope with the median Stun of KA's. All good things in moderation. Perfect predictability reduces any game to Tic Tac Toe. Unpredictability that extinguishes character archetypes is a Bad Thing of course, and ought be carefully balanced by the GM. For example, by helping the team of heroes form in such ways that they compensate for each others' weaknesses, and not punitively or archly abusing disadvantages. And here's where the power of paradox comes. Less predictable elements can make an overall more predictable. The outcomes I've seen have made for more stable, rich and exciting games. If your game equilibrium state is dissatisfying, I recommend examining more closely the reasons. As House said this week, (he was stealing the quote) "You wake up in the morning and your paint is peeling, your water is boiling and your curtains aren't covering your windows. Which do you fix first? Answer, none. Your house is on fire. Don't treat the symptoms, look for the root cause." There's likely something else wrong if your game needs a set of house rules to fix something that by testimonial is no problem for many players. Oh. Wait. I was respecting the opposite view, as an essentially religious difference. Nevermind. Carry on.

Re: New Game: Remnants of Hope [b]Cash Cat - Calvin Crohn[/b] [font=Courier New][b][u]VAL[/u] [u]CHA[/u] [u]Cost[/u] [u]Base[/u] [u]Roll[/u] [u]Notes[/u][/b][/font] [font=Courier New] 15 STR 5 10 12- HTH Damage 3d6 END [1][/font] [font=Courier New] 29 DEX 57 10 15- OCV 10 / DCV 10[/font] [font=Courier New] 19 CON 18 10 13-[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 BODY 0 10 11-[/font] [font=Courier New] 18 INT 8 10 13- PER Roll 12-[/font] [font=Courier New] 11 EGO 2 10 11- ECV: 4[/font] [font=Courier New] 20 PRE 10 10 13- PRE Attack: 4d6[/font] [font=Courier New] 14 COM 2 10 12-[/font] [font=Courier New] 23 PD 4 3 23 PD (16 rPD)[/font] [font=Courier New] 21 ED 1 4 21 ED (16 rED)[/font] [font=Courier New] 6 SPD 18 4.2 Phases: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12[/font] [font=Courier New] 7 REC 0 7[/font] [font=Courier New] 38 END 0 38[/font] [font=Courier New] 28 STUN 0 28[/font] [font=Courier New] 6 RUN 0 6" END [1][/font] [font=Courier New] 2 SWIM 0 2" END [1][/font] [font=Courier New] 3 LEAP 0 3" 3" forward, 2" upward[/font] [font=Courier New][b]CHA Cost: 125[/b][/font] [font=Courier New][b][u]Cost[/u] [u]POWERS[/u][/b][/font] [font=Courier New] 7 EC - Time Phase Shifting[/font] [font=Courier New] 7 a) 7" Flight - surfing Gravity wave differential - 1 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 8 6 rPD/6 rED Force Field, (+1/4 Only Costs END to Start) - 1 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 13 c) Invisible to Normal Sight, (+1/4 Only Costs END to Start) - 2 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 20 10 rPD/rED Armor - IIF (-1/4), 15- (-1/4) - 0 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 5 7 pts. Mental Defense - Timestream-of-Consciousness[/font] [font=Courier New] 75 Multipower Reserve - Temporal-Spatial Manipulation[/font] [font=Courier New] 3u Catseye: Clairsentience - Unreliable (-1)[/font] [font=Courier New] 5u CatShadow: Desolidification - not vs. Dimensional effects, (+1/4 Only Costs END to Start) - 5 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 1u Feared Timeclaw - Image, Sight/Touch/Smell, drawn from near future only (-1) - 3 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 7u Timeclaw: 3d6 RKA, AP - Spot Teleport at range - 7 END[/font] [font=Courier New] 15m Timepaw: Missile Reflection - Spot Time Reversal.[/font] [font=Courier New] 7u Timeleap: Teleport - a lot with Megascale[/font] [font=Courier New] 15m Timestalk: Combat Teleport, 1/2 END (+1/4)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 2 Floating Teleport Locations[/font] [font=Courier New][b]POWERS Cost: 198[/b][/font] [font=Courier New][b][u]Cost[/u] [u]SKILLS[/u][/b][/font] [font=Courier New] Acting 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] AK: Destruga 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Climbing 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Concealment 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Conversation 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] CK: Destruga 9\8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Deduction 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] KS: Seedy Hangouts 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Paramedics 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Persuasion 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] PS: Smuggler 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] Shadowing 8-[/font] [font=Courier New] 3 Stealth 15-[/font] [font=Courier New] 3 Streetwise 13-[/font] [font=Courier New] 3 Trading 13-[/font] [font=Courier New] TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles[/font] [font=Courier New][b]SKILLS Cost: 9[/b][/font] [font=Courier New][b][u]Cost[/u] [u]Talents[/u][/b][/font] [font=Courier New] 15 Danger Sense 11-, Out of Combat[/font] [font=Courier New] 3 Light Sleep[/font] [font=Courier New][b]Talents Cost: 18[/b][/font] [font=Courier New][b]PERKS -[/b] Cash has had certain .. reversals. No perks. He's not actually that great a smuggler.[/font] [font=Courier New][b][u]Val[/u] [u]DISADVANTAGES[/u][/b][/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Dependent NPC: Smuggling crew 8- (Much Less Powerful than the PC; Group DNPC: x4 DNPCs)[/font] [font=Courier New] 15 Hunted: VIPER 8- (Mo Pow, NCI, Mildly Punish)[/font] [font=Courier New] 15 Hunted: Border Patrol 8- (Less Pow, NCI, Harshly Punish)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Hunted: Destrugan Paramilitary 8- (Mo Pow, NCI, Watching)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Physical Limitation: Nonlinear Time Sense (Infrequently, Greatly Impairing)[/font] [font=Courier New] 15 Psychological Limitation: Straight Dealer//Business Ethic (Common, Strong)[/font] [font=Courier New] 15 Psychological Limitation: Humanitarian (Very Common, Moderate)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Psychological Limitation: Resents Authority (Common, Moderate)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Psychological Limitation: Takes Care of His Own Above All (Uncommon, Strong)[/font] [font=Courier New] 15 Social Limitation: Secret ID: Cal Crohn, Honest Underworld Merchant (Frequently, Major)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Social Limitation: Professional Obligations, must appear to deliver on call for his employers (Occasionally, Minor)[/font] [font=Courier New] 10 Social Limitation: Reputation as unhesitant killer if betrayed (useful, but not always)[/font] [font=Courier New][b]DISADVANTAGES Points: 150[/b][/font] [font=Courier New]Base Pts: 200[/font] [font=Courier New]Total Character Cost: 350[/font] This is the first rough draft. It's obviously.. not there yet. Clearly, I ran out of points to spend on skills.. But then, I get the sense that this is a harsh world, where formal education may be a bit hard to come by.

Re: New Game: Remnants of Hope .. sort of a cross of Malcolm Reynolds and Cheshire Cat. No judo outfit. No club. As far as anyone knows, he's just a good, old-fashioned honest law-fearing smuggler.

Re: New Game: Remnants of Hope So, by concept, a sketch like this might serve?

Re: CHAR: Tempest Mind if I subject your rather nicely built character to munchkinish Minmaxing? This version of your character sheet is slightly less well-defended when caught unawares, and uses slightly more END per phase, but has a somewhat better Recovery, hits harder and more often, moves faster and gets up faster when knocked down. I'm not saying this is a better design, only that it reflects the lightning and strength he inherited from his parents in a more focused way.

Re: Matriarchial Societies A matriarchal society could happen around you without you realizing it at all. If 80% of the disposable income were controlled by women, if women held two thirds of all government jobs and led two thirds of all identified family units, were statistically likely to live fifteen percent longer than men, be fifteen percent less likely to be a victim of crime, and to be fifteen percent better educated, then you _could_ argue you were in a matriarchal society.. (..If you ignored the higher expenses, lower average wages, old-boys' networks, noxious oppressive behaviors, and ingrained biases of some such worlds.) Would a matriarchal society feel the need to advertise itself as such?

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast More dice always leads to a smoother distribution. Fewer dice, while easier to tally and avoiding rounding or division, retains the higher standard deviation of lower numbers of dice. Keep in mind, I'm not recommending this mechanic. It's at least as flawed as the standard KA mechanic. It makes for a very lethal game, breaks foci with ridiculous ease (unless you adopt the further complication that targets that have no Stun characteristic or take no Stun from attacks also halve the BODY of KA's before DEF under this mechanic), and I need not mention that it takes relatively few points to make a character completely immune to attacks of this sort (DEF 36 in a 60 AP game).

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast A 60 AP attack scales to something like an RPG, industrial laser, or lightning bolt -- in the realm of generally lethal to ordinary people on direct hits. Setting aside how irresponsible it may be for the good guys to be throwing around damage on that level in any given situation, it's impossible to call this anything but the game working as designed. Scale down the damage to 50 AP or less (for example by having the attack pass through a thin wall and lose a couple of DC's before hitting the bystander) and you still do 40% more lethal damage to your target with a KA on average. If you're carefully choosing the 8 BODY normal, lack of Paramedics around to stabilize victims, and bleeding rules appropriate to grim and gritty campaigns, then you surely will manufacture a victory for your math, and miss entirely the point that people have asked for a more lethal attack that still allows them to play their hero survivably, and gotten one. Incidentally, most people who die of gunshots in the real world have been shot more than once. I suggest selecting conventional damage levels for examples -- up to the large of handguns and blades suited to street-level campaigns. If you scale your campaign to a 25 AP cap on attacks, then you'll expect to take three attacks before your normal human is bleeding to death for the Normal attack, vs. only two for the KA. This makes KA's 50% more lethal, in the ordinary sense. The normal will also be CON-Stunned by one and deeply unconscious after two average hits of the Normal attack, while they wouldn't be CON-Stunned by the expected KA attack, and would remain conscious until bleeding to death from KA's. As modelling of the real world, this is an astoundingly good working mechanic which happens to also work very well scaled up to higher levels. As for my Grond example, please let me restate, I've already conceded that Grond is a poor example to use. I meant Ogre. Ogre's far more likely to be reasonable and socially acceptable. And yes, there is a whole set of persuasive studies that would suggest that Grond's (er, I mean Ogre's) Normal attack is more socially acceptable than the equivalent KA, from Ellsberg's Paradox to the legal theory of justifiable force in self defense. Can someone explain to me what it is people want, that isn't satisfied by the above? o An attack that scales up so superhumans are affected by it exactly the same way as normals? Why? Superhumans can teleport, read minds, suffer susceptibilities, and are unlike normal humans in so many ways that this is hardly a blip. o A more lethal attack to heroes for cheaper points that also happens to be balanced but doesn't remove your favorite characters from play? ... o Spending less time unconscious? Adapt your strategies to cope with this unpleasant factor. It's what the learning process is for. o Being surer of what will happen in any given situation before the dice are rolled? Consider LARPing as a possiblity, since that misses the point of dice. o All without making a more complicated mechanic, and making it just like the way everything else works in the game? There is a mechanic for this. KA's cost exactly what EB's do (5 pts per 1d6), the total rolled/2 = BODY = Stun of the attack. Non-resistant defenses don't affect KA damage. To compensate for having to divide by two, there's never any KB to roll for a KA. I personally hate this method, but it does work.

Re: Do you think these are legitimate Power Builds .. did someone scrap the Mental Illusion power? I think builds that use advantages and limitations to duplicate the effects of existing bare powers should be avoided. I might suggest an advantage on Mental Illusion similar to the 'telepathic' advantage on Mind Control. For +1/2 to the Illusion, the attack power, but not the attacker gets a telepathic sense of what really hurts (or most convinces, or most affects) the target and projects that into the mind. This way you build something weaker and less versatile than Mental Illusion linked to Telepathy, but more like the way many such mental attacks are depicted.

Re: Countries that don't exist (but should)

Re: Another wacky crossover went through my mind. LOTR would be a so much shorter story if the eagles had shown up before the hobbits left the Shire... Or there were halfling attack helicopters.. Or Frodo had been found as an infant by Bilbo in a crater in a farm field surrounded by strange, green-glowing meteor fragments. And how would Thulsa Doom fair in a throw-down with Saruman? I'm pretty sure the Balrog would easily roast any 60' serpent for dinner, if we're comparing epic monsters.. The Dreaming God, though, might stand a chance. I'm not sure how Conan's current forces (The California National Guard?) would do against the armies of Mordor, but it'd be worth it to see that army of ghosts go up against the Black Ships on surfboards and seadoos.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Not exactly a nightmare: All Creatures Great and Smallville. Would Sigourney return again for an Alienational Basketball Association? (For a trifecta.) Mix supersuits and fashion for The Greatest America's Top Model? Mystery Men In Tights.. Or wait, didn't Kevin Costner make that film? Rambo of Sherwood Forest. Rockybo. Is the 700 Club really two and a third times better than the 300 Spartans? Let's put them together and find out. Are You Smarter Than The Osbournes? What if Clark were a little bit.. twitchier? Monkville? Gilligan's Island of Dr. Moreau. I'm not sure how to crossover Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the Beverly Hillbillies, but I'm going to keep trying. And no nightmare crossover list is complete without Predator vs. Deliverance.

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast Granted. All points above are either more correct, or at least funnier, than my answers, quibbles aside. Quibbles being that a) I never claimed reliability was more reliable than blind luck; average Body after DEF of a 4d6 KA vs a 2 DEF normal -including KB, which on either about 3" for the KA or about 5" for the EB _halved_ isn't expected add Body- is 14 vs. 10, or 40% more lethal; c) if your GM is willing to have your 14- VIPER Hunted really show up 92% of the time with every agent they have plus hired supervillains, then I'm willing to bet the same GM will have some rule for accidentally hitting innocent bystanders; d) I always get the Spreading rule wrong -- I blame all my GMs' house rules; e) I'm thinking if Grond believes I caused him an owie, there'll be Body damage -- mine -- and I doubt he's a great example to use in any discussion since I'm sure Grond will attack on much slimmer pretexts than 'owie' ; f) Blackadder's just hitting below the belt -- no way I'm going to out-comic Mr. Bean; g) .. ooh. Interesting math question time! The premise is this: EB's are on the normal curve, are dominated by stochastic processes, and have an extremely high probability of doing damage very near their average, to the extent that the reasonable observer ought to expect the damage of the next EB will be average. Conversely KA's are on a non-normal distribution (for Stun), a higher standard deviation (for Body), and are so much more Uncertain (both in Stochastic and Knightian sense) as to be less predictable and more parameterizable. This means the reasonable observer ought to expect the outer limits of damage, depending on the observer's needs in any case, not the average. Why does this matter? Well, for example, when approaching a combat, the observer expecting to run into 60 AP EB's and KA's should anticipate 12 Body/42 Stun from the EBs and 24 Body/120 Stun from the KA's. Not because Probability predicts that KA's will do so much more damage, but because the usefulness of Probability is diminished by the nature of KA's. Strategically, this makes the KA-user the higher-value target, and tactically this means every method to reduce the odds of being hit by the KA in the long run is best. At the same time, in the case of a controlling mind behind several defenders from KA's, each KA should be treated as if it will *plink* since it is in the observer's best interest to take the highest possible risks with pawns to neutralize the target with the KA. Further, in self-defense social arguments, actions taken against an expected 24 Body/120 Stun are so much easier to justify, regardless of how extreme, than when facing 12 Body/42 Stun. While these aren't necessarily _sensible_ arguments, how often do we see the less reasonable argument supported by people judging debates because they're easily swayed to their own folly? In short, you're more likely to be let off the hook for doing anything to someone who has a KA ready than to someone with an equally (or even more) lethal non-KA. From both the tactical and the social point of view, the inherent mechanics of KA's makes those with them preferred targets. I believe the paradigm is, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Anyway, back to the original question, now that I've agreed I was entirely outmatched by superior logic and wit up to now. EB gives.. more KB! There's always that. Well. It doesn't give _much_ more KB, and KB is of dubious use if you'd rather hit your opponent than chase their limp body around. And let's not forget.. Surprise! You're holding a big 4d6 o-dachi in your left hand, waving it around, and saying something like, "Wait, we have to settle the rules..." as you walk all philosophically toward your opponent and sneak off a 12d6 lightning bolt to their hit loc 13 with your right hand while they're saying, "Rules? There ain't no ru... *ZOT*" Ayup. Judging from many comments, most guys would be surprised if you went with the EB when you could've used a KA. That's about all I've got, to answer the original question: KB, and Surprise.

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast Reliability. At the 12d6 level, half of all stun damage is within a few pips of 42, and the dozen most extreme possible outcomes in either direction are less than one percent likely. Fewer accidental deaths. Since everyone alive has a little non-resistant DEF, those missed shots might not do quite as much damage as the comparable KA to innocent bystanders, the targets of Reflected attacks, etc. Spread granularity and spread value. For -1 DC of EB, you gain 1 OCV. For -3 DC of KA, you gain the same 1 OCV. People don't know you don't care if they live or die when you hit them - With an EB, you can't always argue you didn't mean to kill them. With a Killing Attack, you may be on much shakier ground if you're trying to persuade, say, Grond, that you didn't mean to cause an owie. Duel of honor - if your foe doesn't go with a KA, you're arguably less honorable if you don't also forego the KA. What your friends think of you - Haven't heard terribly many people say 'Gee, I think your gun is kinda cute.' (Well, sadly, I have heard it, but.. er.. uh.. Nevermind.)

Re: smallville stats I'd think he'd need invisibility, linked to running, at the very least... Faster than a speeding bullet, by some estimates I've seen, is in the range of 150"-270" per second (segment, for most purposes). At SPD 6, that's 300"-540" (which you'd pretty much only be able to afford as a noncombat or megascale movement). Still buildable, on a 250 pt. character.

Re: The NEW Champions of Vancouver -- What Would You Like To See? I left out two significant aspects of Vancouver: 1) 'Only when raining' is a -0 Limitation there, 2) 'Believes it isn't raining' is a 15 pt. Psych. Lim

Re: KA Vs Energy Blast Yes. And no. I'm viewing rolls of dice in the game as dependent on previous rolls and influencing subsequent rolls. This would be Deterministic modelling. Stochastic modelling is used for independent rolls, and deals only with Risk, not Knightian Uncertainty. But the game as a whole is not Stochastic. Where is the dependence and influence? I'm not suggesting that if I roll a particular result with my dice one time, the next time the probability distribution of results will change, or anything of that sort. (E.g. Like drawing results from a hat, as each result is removed, that result is removed from the future pool of possible outcomes.) I'm suggesting that use of attacks in game are part of a decision matrix. Do you have the Endurance to make the next attack? Will you, if you Push this time? Do you have Limited Uses? Are rationing decisions necessary when you use your attack? What about Spreading, or Haymaker, or Coordination or other special maneuvers -- if you use them this time, how will they influence next time? If you do more KB than you have movement, does this mean your opponent gets a free Recovery as you close the distance again? And what about your target? They can Push their Force Field or Force Wall, opt to Roll with Punch, Missile Deflect, move away, take cover, etc. In any combat Turn, thousands of these combinations are possible, and their probabilities change with each prior outcome. If you have no END or Uses left, your probability of doing damage falls to zero, for example. Any one roll retains its Stochastic properties. The applicability of that roll, however, is dependent on the combat situation, which is determined by the culmination of all prior rolls and the decisions made by future-looking intelligent participants in the combat. That makes Deterministic models more appropriate. The role of Knightian Uncertainty in all of this is that Normal attacks of the same power -- all other things being equal (ceteris parebus) -- are 'reliable' and will allow gamblers to know the Risk of a combat overall, while a KA's are unreliable and gamblers will have no help from estimates of outcomes. This changes the game, and the decisions that future-looking participants in combat will make. And that is why Stochastic arguments are of limited use and relevant only when considered in context. Don't Luck and Unluck also deviate from this? Don't some Talents and Perks have fixed, rather than random, effects? Movement takes you fixed distances per action, not random distances. Activation rolls, in and of themselves, follow the bell curve. Stacked dependent Activation rolls, however, don't. The game is full of non-belled elements. I believe it would overcomplicate and weaken it to force the Normal curve into every mechanic... But if it floats your boat, go for it. Move 2d6" per round, with a 3d6 noncombat multiplier.