pawsplay

I agree in the general, but pretty much all of this applies to Xavier as well. He's a mind-controlling authoritarian with a slightly different vision of what the future looks like. And his vision happens to be wrong. Idealistic, hypocritical, impractical, dangerous, and predicated on the use of extreme force to enforce peace. He has a worse record than Magneto in terms of recruiting child soldiers, and considers himself completely above and outside human law, which is why Magneto finds him ridiculous. Magneto is indeed a cultic figure... but it's hard to see him as a "villain." He's a resistance fighter, an arrogant, ruthless one who has discarded seeing his enemy as worthy of compassion. But he is fighting the war he was given, not the one he chose, and all of his aims are actually well-intentioned. In fact, he pities humans, because he knows that rationally, they should see mutants as replacements. People with powers will win. And Magneto is probably correct in thinking mutants need a strong leader in order to avoid turning their powers on each other and slagging the Earth. So. When you factor in Xaxier's use of fourteen year old assets, and his non-consensual use of mind-reading and mind control, I can barely see daylight between him and Magneto.

Magneto. He's just right. Of course, he is a "villain" because of his extreme actions in the cause, but then again, nothing he does is more extreme than what the other side is doing to him. Like most figures in a genuine resistance, he recognizes that battle lines are often arbitrarily. Even in his oldest, most cartoonish versions, he just comes across more as a vigilante, partisan, and/or anti-hero than an actual villain.

It wasn't Hero, but White Wolf's Aberrant is set up like this. Essentially, everyone is a quantum-powered "nova." You could optionally play a really talented human, who would be toast in a real high-powered fight but might be skilled and useful in their own way, or a not-quite-as-limited "psiad" with traditional psychic abilities (who was generally not recognized as being different from a nova). I did try to run a Wildcards game in Hero once, which I think would have been great, but it just never got off the ground.

The big issue I see with Multiform is that you don't really become someone new. Especially if you retain spellcasting or other abilities, you end up having to buy a lot of your abilities twice. And how does that work with adjustment powers? I think Shapeshifting with a Multipower is the correct approach. I see the "no multipowers" rule cited above, but that has to do with putting unrelated spells in a Multipower. I don't think it applies to a standalone supernatural power, and certainly, I've never seen issues with creating a multipower for a spell that does multiple things. The D&D 3e version of a druid, which involves paging through a half dozen books to pick out the most advantageous "animals" and casting in animal form is probably more like a VPP, but I don't think that was the intention. Assuming a druid has a number of forms related to local species, I think you could get away with a Multipower that lets you slip in Growth and Shrinking, natural weapons, movement changes, special senses, boosted STR, and a little ED and PD. If all you do is turn into a wolf or a bird, all the easier.

Well, for a force field, it would be nice if it blocked a disintegration ray that went against Power Defense.

If it's momentary, Change Environment seems the way to go. If you want it to do more watery... stuff... you would be looking at a Transform.

Playing in an imaginary world, you have a choice: either all-imaginary names (which requires a certain level of creativity and means you can't use certain evocative choices) or borrowing from the real world (which can have connotations you don't want). I'm generally fine with anachronistic or atopic names popping up in pure fantasy, but one particular thing I find jarring: Biblical names in a world that doesn't have Christianity or anything like it. To me names like Miriam or James or Jericho have a very specific connotation to specific Biblical characters and mythology which I find distracting. I don't struggle as much with old Celtic names, or with Latin names (which of course have been used, reused, and abused all over Europe anyway).

Medieval peasants had physically demanding lives, but they also didn't get as much meat. I don't know that a peasant was any stronger than a modern truck driver or fast food worker. Maybe the Min Str for the spear is off... but it's entirely an assumption that peasants are running around with weapons they have matching STR for. People have historically probably used lots of weapons they took the -1 penalty for. A spear is cheap, durable, and most importantly, offers Reach. Nobody but a professional warrior is going to go into battle intending to use something like an axe, club, or sword.

I'm not saying it's advantageous. Rather that it's ability to absolutely overcome defenses is appealing to some people when trying to model certain highly powerful attacks, and the fact it is not always advantageous causes the resulting construction to look and play weird. It's like, hi, I'm wearing a spacesuit, so I'm less vulnerable to adamantium claws.

I'd rather get rid of Penetrating and keep AP. AP allows attacks to rationalize enemy's defenses without creating huge kill numbers. It's indispensable for characters like Wolverine, who can harm very hard targets but isn't going to cut a tank in half with claws that short. Whereas I could live without Penetrating: Bees! 1d6 RKA NND, defense is environmentally sealed armor or immune to bees Penetrating is in many examples used as, okay, this really CAN cut through anything, and I think it's the wrong Advantage for that. Penetrating should really only be for attacks that can seep through incompletely sealed defenses; it does full damage against lesser defended foes but still always does something without Impenetrable defenses. It's a very specific behavior, which in most cases could be adequately modeled by combining an attack with a Linked NND attack for the splatter/leakage/swarming damage.

It's not a Real Weapon, it's the farthest thing from it. It has whatever characteristics you assign it, can't really be lost, requires no maintenance, and can be instantly repaired by resummoning it. I don't think it's even Restrainable, since you can already add your Strength to it, meaning it inherits the requirement for movement already. The 3e mindblade is just a multipower with two or three slots. It's just a standard KA, with RKA in the other slot, and Lockout (the weapon is thrown or disarmed). More advanced users have a third slot where it creates two weapons, with a smaller damage bonus. The weapon type is probably immaterial; if you think crushing versus slashing will make a difference, and you can do both, add Variable Special Effects to each power. The inspiration is a reliable ability. If you want to add Requires a Skill Roll or something, go for it. To imitate a low level user who has to use a "move action" to manifest it, take Extra Time (Full Phase, only to activate the first time, -1/4).

I'm not talking about disrupting the Haymaker. I'm saying, if you can move after attacking, you can complete the Haymaker, then dart away. I don't see the benefit of characters running up, attacking each other, then retreating throughout combat. Of course, if everyone does it, it largely neutralizes any advantage, except in the occasional situation where it isn't feasible for someone to move in that way. It's tactically shallow, I don't see that it adds anything except quirkiness.

To me it's less a matter of balance, than of how characters will always be moving away from each other during battle. It produces oddities like characters winding up for a haymaker, suffering reduced DCV, and immediately moving away.

Arithmetic is easy. It's decisions that are hard. A question I would pose is, if CON is how healthy you are, why do I then also have to decide how much damage I can take, how much endurance I have, and how tough I am, separately from my Constitution? What does DEX represent, if it's completely divorced from combat ability? If I'm creating a fighter for a fantasy campaign, how much PD and ED should I have? These might seem like second nature to long-time players, but to the novice, we've gone from a system where you have eights traits to decide, and a few things to calculate, to one in which you have sixteen or so, including a vestigial OMCV for many characters. The current system is what you get when you keep refining something to appeal to an expert user base who are comfortable with odd legacy items. Splitting off SPD, in order to get rid of decimal purchases for that one trait, and because it doesn't necessarily have a strong relationship with DEX, was a good idea.

While I understand some of the advantages of getting rid of Derived Characteristics, it drastically increased the mental load needed to make a simple character.

I realize that a lightsaber is not the focus of this discussion, but I think the "not causing explosive decompression" thing is valid with lightsabers. In Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, we see the blade deflects on a variety of objects, including crates and metal safety rails. I don't think anything short of an intentional blow is going to puncture a metal hull. A lightsaber can't even reliably cut through a phrik-metal staff, or Darth Vader's armor. The only time I recall seeing a lightsaber breaching a solid metal structure is Qui Gon cutting into the Nemoidian control room, and I'd say he is using his Force powers there. The thing is, swords are just generally too long to be convenient, in a modern or sci-fi setting. Something like a machete or other large chopping blades do seem use. But there isn't much call to actually fence. Even if you were running low on ammo, in an open field, mostly relying on hand weapons, I'm not sure that a sword is necessarily preferable to a shovel or a rifle stock. During WWI, the preferred weapon was the trench raiding club, a bit of hard wood embedded with nails or cast-off metal. Essentially, a morningstar. Swords are for dueling. A martial weapon for open warfare is usually going to be a spear, mace, or axe. In the Japanese feudal era, samurai and other warriors probably killed more people with axes in open warfare than they did with katanas. Something that requires a keen blade is a prima donna of weapons, and vulnerable to breakage.

It might be a "psionic power" but it's not a Mental Power. Decide whether the pool can do Mental Powers, or Psionic powers, and price accordingly.

I've won real-ish armor, and I think the greatest danger you would face in medieval combat was cooking alive like a Hot Pocket from your own body heat after 10-15 minutes of heavy combat.

I doubt they could even do that if they wanted, without approval from the Champions Online people. It would be nice to a see a small version of the basic rules, though, for free, like GURPS does.

Here's a very simple solution, that closely mimics the Speed Chart. First phase, everyone gets a turn in Dex order. Then everyone gets their second phase, in Dex order. Then third. People with a really high Speed get a bunch of phases in a row at the end, which can heighten some of their tactics but also costs them opportunities to use defenses.

Back in the 90s, I knew a guy in college who got in trouble for computer crimes. Well, the FBI showed up at his hearings and made him a deal, and he got off basically scott free in return for helping them catch other computer criminals. Back in 1995, the FBI's expertise on computer crime was embarrassing to the point of being anachronistic. I see a world with modern supers being much the same way; super criminals are so beyond conventional law enforcement that agencies will readily back almost anyone able and willing to take on the hero mantle. It would be much like the old gunfighter days, where the line between sheriff, bounty hunter, and murderer could be quite permeable.

About five acres of good farmland will support one person, so for a 10,000 person city (like early medieval London) you would need at least 78 square miles of farmland. Assuming less good farmland and twice the population, you would need at least 300 square miles.

Evil people want something. However depraved, callous, and cruel they are, they are looking to fulfill a human need. By contrast, something that is Utterly Evil gains satisfaction only by doing the kind of evil things it embodies. Among other things, this means if the creature pretends to be fair, magnanimous, or to be serving a greater purpose, it is always lying. It's a lot easier to pretend something that has a grain of truth or that you somewhat understand, so an Utterly Evil demon has to completely manufacture all of its behavior when it pretends to help you. There's nothing about it really capable or deserving of redemption. Like Overconfidence or Narcissism or a Hero's Code, it does have a certain predictability which can be exploited. Further, if some magic or miracle requires a non-evil motivation to work, it never works for the demon, except under the circumstances one might defy a Total Psychological Limitation. That said, I probably wouldn't make it a Total limitation unless that kind of magic came up very often. Although its evil is absolute, its actual behavior is only bound by its preferences in the moment. I can conceive of a demon that always does the most evil thing, not necessarily the one that meets its own personal goals, but I don't think that's much like the demons I've encountered in fiction.

As noted above, in Tolkien, Melkor and his creatures were unable to create life. Orcs are perversions of men and orcs, and therefore, in principle, are capable of salvation. Just as the Dark Powers can't create a soul, presumably they can't destroy one. However, it is implicit in Tolkien's writing that no mortal being can resist temptation forever. Without the Light and the One, mortal beings cannot prevail. Orcs were lost a long time ago, and their bodies and minds burn in the presence of things that are holy or forged with good magic, but you could, seemingly, try to redeem a single orc. But for all Gandalf's talk of mercy, Tolkien's world seems to accept the necessity of war and valor against evil, and so the heroes don't waste any more time trying to redeem an orc than they would a Haradrim or Numenorean (two human ethnicities of Middle-earth), or for that matter, more than an elf would waste time redeeming a dwarf that represented any kind of threat to them. But in principle, at least... Gollum, who was a thrall to the Ring for a long, long time, could still feel sympathy and conflict, despite having long been corrupted by the darkness. Orcs, in Tolkien, simply don't know any kindness, so what has been done to their bodies, minds, and souls would be difficult to heal. In early D&D worlds, orcs were creations of their patron immortals and deities. Their nature reflects their creation. Nonetheless, they are intelligent creatures and can, in principle, be reasoned with and even redeemed. That's probably not going to happen in a typical storyline, but there is still room for the pathetic or tragic orc that earns the mercy of the party, and maybe even some kind of friendship. It's also worth noting that in virtually all D&D worlds, orcs are rarely purebred, and all the traits that can be found in trolls, humans, goblins, and the like, can be found in orcs, even apart from their nature as intelligent humanoid beings. In Palladium, orcs are simply a species of intelligent beings. More brutal and less intelligent than humans, on average, they nonetheless possess all the variation and potentiality of any civilized being. An orc could be a soldier, a thief, a baker, an innkeeper. Someone might dislike orcs because of a given population's behavior, or because they don't like something about orc temperament, but orcs aren't "evil" in Palladium in any metaphysical or psychological sense, although many orcs, especially mercenaries and brigands, might individually be evil. Yrth (the GURPS fantasy world) has orcs similar to Palladium ones. Given that they are essentially a brutish subhuman race, this raises, on one hand, questions about the morality of slaying orcs, and on the other hand, implications in play about that touch on real-world history and prejudices about foreigners. They are a convenient guiltless foe, but on reflection, it's not clear if an enlightened view of orcs would really permit such prejudice. Again, orcs are tougher, more brutal and generally less intelligent than humans, but individual orcs exhibit the same diversity of characteristics as humans. A genius orc is still smarter than an average human. The backstory of Yrth highlights some of this ambiguity, as the world in its current form basically exists because the elves tried to commit genocide against the orcs, back before humans, goblins, and the rest arrived on Yrth through a magical accident.

Maybe in your world, almost all iron ores are low quality, low in carbon and silicon, and high in sulfur. So the basic knowledge exists to purity the ore and cast it, but only something approaching early steel exists, basically just iron that has been smoked and tempered. Meanwhile, there are some weaponsmiths who possess almost magical secrets. They create something akin to Damascus steel or Japanese sword steel by carefully processing and forging the steel. In the real world, such technological disparities created legends that lasted centuries, until other places caught up. Outside of those masters, the only superior steel available is from meteorite iron. Note that in the early Iron Age, whether a given weapon of bronze or steel was superior depended a lot on workmanship. What created a revolution in arms is how plentiful iron is, compared to copper and tin (which are additionally rarely found near each). In a world of poor iron and inferior steel, bronze weapons might exist of superior allows and workmanship which are also quite powerful compared to ordinary weapons. Bronze tends to be more ductile, but it's also dense, so making superior bronze weapons would be a matter of know-how.