BoloOfEarth

And a follow-up question, not related to the build itself: As a GM, is messing with Pops' power like this a dickish move? Pops did pay for his teleportation (ableit in a fixed Multipower slot, so not a lot of points, though he paid 33 points for the Clairsentience separately). I'm justifying it as a consequence of Maker basically trying to get some robotic followers without paying points for them. When she took the first one, I allowed it as "spoils of war." She now has 3, and I'm sure she'll run off with any others she thinks she can get away with. Also, the rest of the team has used the captured flyer bots to do reconnaissance, so the whole team has been in on it, so I figure the whole team should face the consequences of that. But is this all just a convenient excuse on my part?

A situation in my Champions campaign, in two parts: 1) One of the heroes (Maker, an energy projector with gadgeteering) has been taking captured VIPER flyer bots to use as her own. These have plug-and-play modules for offensive, defensive, sensory, and other purposes. (Basically, each bot has a VPP, with a predefined set of slots.) The Professor (second in command of Boston VIPER) knows she is doing this and wants to use it to his advantage, or at least the heroes' disadvantage. 2) Another hero, Pops, has teleportation powers and frequently uses a Megascale mass teleport to transport the entire hero team to locations anywhere in the country. Specifically, he has to be touching the people teleporting with him (actually, them touching him). So they normally arrive with Pops in the center and the rest of the team surrounding him. And he does have Clairsentience only for targeting his teleport at long distances. The idea is, The Professor is going to send some more flyer bots to be captured, each with plug-and-play modules that appear innocuous, but in reality can generate an energy field that will, over time, alter Maker's own energy to interfere with Pops' teleport. (I figure the modules will be something like a 1d6 Major Transform, Penetrating, Invisible Power Effects, AoE 8m radius.) The idea being to add an Always On power to Maker (that she can eventually figure out a way to get rid of) that will cause Pops' mass-teleport to go awry on occasion, ideally scattering the heroes all over town.** ** Not in pieces; that would be messy. I mean that Pops ends up in one location, Maker in another, Circe in a third, etc. So, how to draw up the teleport redirect? I'm thinking it would be Teleportation, say 4m, with Safe Blind Teleport (+1/4), Megascale (1m = 1 km; +1), Trigger (Maker is teleported; zero phase, resets automatically, immediately after activation; +3/4), Usable as Attack (+1 1/4), 0 END (+1/2 or +1; see below), Persistent (+1/4); Always On (-1/2), Activation 11- (-1/2), Teleports target in random direction / distance (-0) But would I make it AoE (4m radius; +1/4) to encompass the rest of her team? Or AoE (4m Radius Accurate; +1/2) with Autofire (10 shots; +2)? The former writeup seems like it should send everybody to the same location. But the latter seems like it would require some sort of conscious targeting on her part, and I want this to be something that would happen even if she was unwilling or unconscious.

"Hey, you were the one who said it should be 'Common' because, and I quote, 'Hey, I'm from Krypton, so it should be, like, common for me.' Maybe next time you'll think twice before you munchkin your character. You're almost as bad as Joey and his 'powers don't work against the color yellow.' I mean, honestly, guys?"

Maybe the killing of their Earth-1 counterparts is because the Earth-2 villains have all seen Highlander. "There can be only one!" Having re-watched the latest episode, I'm kinda liking Wells 2.0 - good writing and acting for him, IMO. The up-front dickishness works well in this case. And the whole thing makes me wonder -- if Thawne hadn't killed Wells and taken his place, the particle accelerator accident would have likely still happened, but maybe Wells wouldn't have been a mentor at all to Barry. Maybe he'd have just been a self-centered know-it-all prick.

Maybe Lex Luthor went back in time and traveled to the destruction of Krypton just to set up some sort of deep-space mass driver to collect chunks of the shattered planet and chuck them in Earth's direction. It would explain a lot. ("Hmmmm... can't just kill Supes as a baby because of causality. But I can make sure there's a continuous supply of kryptonite to make his life miserable...") Given that it's TV, I don't expect movie-level SFX from Supergirl. But if they dip into the level of, say, Greatest American Hero, I'll start complaining. Overall, I'm happy that they're showing plenty of powers use, instead of making it a mind-numbing melodrama with minimal power use. The SFX, flight poses, and wire work didn't bother me at all.

Looking back, I realized that I never posted about the A-Team at the PRIMUS base. All of this takes place before the heroes ran into the Grief Tyrant and McGinty. The heroes arrived at the PRIMUS base to find the members of A-Team waiting either outside the building or just inside the open vehicle bay. The heroes had brought Major Justice (NPC flying brick stick-in-the-mud who applied to join Just Cause) along just in case. While the front-line fighters on both teams engage each other, A-Bomb (actor with radiation powers) zooms over to Circe and gestures at her costume. A-Bomb: Wait... is that a Versace influence I see? Circe: Yeah, you like it? I designed it. A-Bomb: Tres chic. Very nice. I had to fly to Florence and kidnap Riccardo Tisci to do mine. (Looks at the other heroes) You had a hand in some of the other outfits too, didn't you? Circe: You have a good eye. A-Bomb: I tried to talk some of my teammates into getting designer costumes, but they didn't want to be bothered. I mean, look at Ankylosaur. He thinks matte black makes him all badass. Granted, it's better than that horrendous green-and-rust color scheme he used to have, but that all-black look is so 1990s. Circe: Um... are you planning to attack me? A-Bomb: Only if you attack me first. Ankylosaur said to keep you tied up. I told him, she seems much more the handcuff type. But he so did not want to listen. Circe: But aren't you a villain? A-Bomb: (stage whispers) Not really. I just play one on TV. One of the players reluctantly agrees to also run Major Justice. Player: But I don't know what he does. Shadowboxer: He's a FISS. Flight, Invulnerability, Strength, Speed. Your basic flying brick. Honey Badger: But he takes a lot of knockback. I mean, a LOT. If he takes a hit, he won't get hurt, but you'll take a while getting back to the fight. Player: How about personality-wise? Honey Badger: Self-righteous uber-hero. Think Superman or Captain America with a major stick up his rectum. Major Justice flies up to Auger. Major Justice: (loudly) Halt, foul miscreant! (strikes a heroic pose in midair) Honey Badger: (OOC) Nailed it! (work is interrupting. Hope to post more tonight)

I kinda want Trevor Nelson to swing by Shoo's espresso stand and act his normal self... FYI, Hermit, I'm working other stuff from your NPCs into my campaign world, both directly and as background. For instance, one PC has the complication "DNPC girlfriend of the week" and I created a young lady who works at EcoOp (tried without success to date the CEO). Sniffing Strangers is going to play at the Paradise Rock Club (of which one PC is co-owner). Hank Houston is going to have a chat with Nexus (who can see and speak to the dead). And Col. Hardin is going to become the new commander at Boston PRIMUS after the former commander is tossed under the bus for the A-Team being able to get free from their holding cells and trash the base.

Adding to the NPCs as Nothere and Cancer have done: The Loudmouthed Jerk Trevor Nelson is the guy you find in practically every workplace; in line at the QuikShop; sitting a table over in the restaurant; or in the seat next to you on a four-hour flight. He lives by the maxim, "The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease," and figures that the squeakier you are, the more grease you get. As the only son of a successful and semi-famous trial lawyer, Trevor grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and thus he feels entitled to whatever he wants. In his mind, others exist mainly to serve him and he's not afraid to let them know this. Heaven forbid that you make a mistake while serving him. He will insist on speaking to your boss and demanding (in a loud and condescending voice) that you be fired and he gets whatever he wants for free. Unfortunately, between his dad's connections and his own (Trevor is a high-ranking VP at a local bank), he has enough pull to make others' lives miserable if he really wants. And since he doesn't see the point of making empty threats, Trevor really will call a company's CEO trying to get a low-level employee fired. (Well, he'll have his secretary make the call since that's what they're there for; he'll just get on the line long enough to make sure the deed gets done.) QUOTE: "In this world there's movers, and there's losers. I'm a mover. You're a loser. It's as simple as that. Now bring me my order. Chop chop."

Are you thinking along a coast, or inland? If coastal, how about somewhere along the Gulf coast of Texas? Like around where Port Lavaca / Victoria is. I'm thinking Port Victory sounds like a great name for a Champions campaign setting. And it would be relatively near Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. If inland, I can't imagine why but I was looking at the area of Hermitage, Missouri. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Seriously, though, if inland I'd maybe go further west and put it somewhere in Colorado. It seems like a state where you could have nature and tech, a variety of weather, tourism, military (Cheyenne Mountain and the Air Force Academy) pretty much whatever you'd want.

Here is the completed PDF, with bookmarks. Great work, Hermit. People of Campaign City.pdf

I unfortunately didn't do well at writing down and then posting quotes of late, but I'll try and reconstruct here. The week before they had fought a Grief Tyrant (I took a picture from a card from IIRC Magic the Gathering and created a creature that can grow over 8m tall and use a Mental Entangle to paralyze a target with grief). Once they got it down to about 10 STUN it teleported away, and it became apparent that the thing was going to keep doing that repeatedly until it's insanity aura had turned the heroes into twitching phobics and paranoids. After that first encounter, Shadowboxer found a concealed door in the basement of the house he had inherited from McGinty, opening to a dirt tunnel showing bootprints / cane prints coming and going. He followed the tracks alone... and then abruptly dropped from Circe's Mind Link with the team. (He had passed a point in the tunnel where he traveled back in time.) The rest of the team went to the house and entered the tunnel as well to locate him. After a while, they found a rather large spider, which looked like somebody had hit it with a shriveling spell and then pounded on it repeatedly with both boot and cane. GM: The dead spider is about this big. (holds hands to a bit bigger than a soccer ball) Honey Badger: Those are some long legs! GM: No. That's just its body. HB: Okay, THAT'S not natural. The other heroes eventually find Shadowboxer. After finding they have no cellphone reception, even though the tunnel doesn't seem to be all that deep underground... Maker: I can be my own hotspot. HB: I can vouch for that! (leers) Maker: (glares) I meant wifi hotspot. After changing her gadget pool to do so, she learns that she's not getting any wifi signal at all. Nor any satellite signal for GPS. No FM radio stations, though she's picking up AM signals. GM: You hear some old-time music. Jazz, maybe, or big band. Circe: #!&%!@! We went back in time! Malarky discovers traces of a magical alarm spell, where Shadowboxer had reached before turning back upon hearing his teammates. Malarky: Not much sense in being stealthy. I'm pretty sure somebody already knows we're coming. They open the concealed door at the other end to find themselves in another building's basement. Coffin with a sign ("Reserved for previous occupant", I believe it reads). Large cabinet with plenty of weapons and ammo, including several shotguns and a Tommy gun. A few wooden crates containing dynamite. The door at the top of the stairs opens, and they hear the voice of an elderly, crotchety man. McGinty: When you're done fookin' around down there, mebbe you lot could find your way upstairs? I'm not getting any damned younger, y'know. GM realizes there's some info he wanted first, and asks everybody their favorite drink... except Malarky, who doesn't notice the oversight and volunteers that he likes a good whiskey, even though he's technically under the drinking age. They come upstairs and into McGinty's den. McGinty: Good to see you lot again. (shakes Shadowboxer's and Honey Badger's hands, makes a few suggestive comments at Nexus and Circe, then turns toward Malarky) And you brought the damned Catholic too. (shakes his head sadly, then turns to Pops with a wicked twinkle in his eye) Don't recognized you, though. Ah, damn me, that's right, we're meetin' in reverse order. You lot are just starting out, so you (to Pops) must not last long. Don't worry, though. If it's any consolation, the lad they replace you with is a right prat. He has a tray with various glasses on them, which he proceeds to hand out to the heroes. McGinty: Sugar Beaver, here's your beer. Shadowboxer, hope you like this bourbon. (hands out the rest of the drinks, then gets to Malarky) And last but least, some grape juice for the kiddie table. Nexus is looking at McGinty's library, which contains both normal reference books as well as some tomes that are better left unread. GM: You see a copy of the Necronomicon. McGinty has about thirty different pages marked with slips of paper, ribbons, and other makeshift bookmarks. One of the slips of paper has written on it, "Ooo! Try this!" Nexus sees the book that she had made a magical pact with Charles Aching a few weeks prior, swearing to acquire that book for him, in exchange for Aching bringing her long-lost brother back to her world. But the pact precludes her revealing her interest in the book or her even meeting Aching, so she has to walk a very fine line. Nexus: Do you mind if I take a look through these books? Maybe take some pictures? McGinty: Feel free to look all you wish, lass, but I don't have a camera handy. Nexus: No worries. I have one. (Holds up her smartphone) McGinty: Riiiiiight. (holds up a cigar case) And this here's me radio. Shadowboxer: Speaking of which, your will and letter mentioned your books, but they weren't in the house. McGinty: Damned shyster lawyers. Must have made off wi' 'em. Shadowboxer: Actually, we have reason to believe you hid them, but we can't find them. Can you tell us where? McGinty: (Gestures at his library) Well, I ain't hid 'em yet, now, have I? (pause) And you can't have 'em yet, cause I'm not yet done with 'em! Using Malarky's eidetic memory, they rewrite McGinty's letter to Shadowboxer and give it to McGinty to see if it gives him a clue. The letter is sprinkled with such phrases as, "Well, lad..." and "well-read books" and the like. McGinty: (stifles a grin) Welllll, lad, I can't rightly say. Ye'll just have to sort it out when you get back. Circe realizes that McGinty knows where he hid the books and decides to use Telepathy to get the info. GM: Remember when you touched the mind of one of those mythos horrors, and got to share some of its insane thoughts? Circe: Oh, no! GM: (rolls dice) Yeah, you find yourself down a few more points of EGO and PRE. Though you do catch McGinty thinking, "Well, now, aren't I just fookin' brilliant!" McGinty shares other info with them. McGinty: Now, I heard tell ye'll be needing some information on grief tyrants. Bloody scary buggers, can turn themselves even bigger than ol' Deborah Einstein, if you can believe that. Damned powerful too. Not a lot of info out there on 'em, so it took me a few weeks to gather what I could. (gives some info that the heroes have already figures out for themselves before getting to the juicy bits) And they can slip far away if they wish, but if it's not short range they can only go to a place they've been where there's concentrated grief. Like a temperance lecture. Shadowboxer: How can we get rid of it for good? McGinty: I've always found judicious use of explosives and fire to do the trick. And if that doesn't work, try running away. You don't have to run fast, just faster than him (nods at Malarky).

FYI, Linus Yeutter made an appearance in my campaign last night. The heroes held a press conference, and when Linus got up asking questions while filming the heroes with his smartphone, they became super suspicious. He can't be a real reporter, right? What kind of reporter uses a smartphone to record a press conference? Heh. One of Linus' questions they really didn't want to answer, so after Nexus stumbled a bit, Malarky asked who Linus was and then took a poke at his name to try and redirect from his question. But Linus wasn't deterred and asked point-blank, "Nexus, do you talk to the dead? It's a simple question. Yes or no." She said no (technically, she Mind Links to them, so there's no actual talking involved), but that's not going to look good when Linus posts an interview of the father of a murder victim, whom Nexus told that she was talking to his dead son. Afterward, the heroes researched New Edge Media and found out it was for real. (I added that NEM has an open offer on various social media to potentially purchase breaking news videos, which seemed a reasonable supposition of how Linus might get a line on new stories.) But the heroes' behavior at the press conference didn't really leave Linus feeling all that charitable toward them, so I'm sure there will be future clashes. Great character concept, Hermit.

Thank you for the kind words, but I have to disagree. All I'm doing is "prettying up" an already awesome body of work by Hermit. He's doing all the real work. I just want to combine it all into a single PDF to make it easier for a wider audience to use.

Never watched it, so I didn't know who that was a picture of. I was just looking for a dark-haired beauty because of the text. Easy enough to swap out. When I update the PDF next time (after you've posted some more people) I'll have a different picture in there.

Here's what I have thus far. (I'm particularly proud of the pictures of Sniffing Strangers.) Hope you don't mind the change to the formatting / order, and some minor edits throughout. I put the quotes up front. PeopleOfCampaignCity.pdf

Since Hermit skipped over it, I think I'll try to tackle: The Boyfriend / Girlfriend Chris Armitage has known [the PC in secret ID] since they were both toddlers. Of course, growing up next door to each other helped ensure they would be best friends. The two of them were inseparable, often taking the fall for each other when their parents found out what trouble one or the other had gotten into. Sure, when they started elementary school they had to endure the childhood taunts -- "Chris and [PC] sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" -- but neither one really cared. They were best buds, and everybody else could go hang if they didn't like it. And then, as they entered middle school / junior high and were just starting to notice the fascinating ways that boys and girls differed, Chris's dad got transferred across the country. The two of them were heartbroken, and swore to keep in touch. They succeeded for a while, with letters and phone calls back and forth and making plans for their families to vacation in each other's states, but then Mr. Armitage's work took him overseas. Within a year, they had fallen completely out of touch and each reluctantly moved on with their lives. However, everybody grows up and moves out on their own eventually, and that's what Chris has done, moving to Campaign City with a new job as a clerk in the local courthouse. A chance encounter at a coffee house brought [PC] and Chris back together, and the years apart seemed to melt away. Maybe it was just meant to be... QUOTE: "Remember when we snuck into the old abandoned mental hospital, the summer before I moved away? Man, was that creepy! (wicked grin) But now I wish we had ditched Pete and Sarah. Coulda been fun..."

Excellent characterizations pretty much across the board. I've copied all to date into a Word document, and plan to look for photos of people online to put next to each one, give me a simple visual to show the players when they run into them. Because yes, I plan to use many of them. As a GM, I appreciate characters who are unique and memorable; who could regularly interact with at least one and possibly more PCs; and have growth potential (in that their interactions with the PCs will cause them to subtly change over time, and ideally cause the PCs to similarly grow as characters). That said, my favorites thus far are... well, I'm tempted to list all of them, but that wouldn't be very helpful. I'll start with the Bail Bondsman, the Bartender, the Charity Worker, the Gambler, and the Military Commander. All have good long-term possibilities for interaction with the heroes. I think it would probably be more instructive to list one I'm not as fond of, and the reason why. I like the character of the Artist, but other than as background I don't see a lot of potential uses for her. Sure, she could maybe witness a criminal act and then, instead of reporting it to the police normally she paints it on the street or a wall, leading the heroes to seek her out for information they need to nab the perps. But that would really only work once. I hope all of that helps a bit. Keep up the great work, Hermit. A very worthy project.

Complete aside: I just watched most of the current season of the Awesomes on Hulu (if you're not familiar, it's an animated superhero show that's mostly parody but has some great characters), and they briefly introduced a villain named Backstory. His hook was that he has the most torturous, convoluted backstory. I don't think they ever did finish telling it. IMO a great way of poking fun at that trope. Props to zslane for his theory on Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost. I was not looking forward to her turning into Killer Frost because I don't want her to stop working with The Flash, Cisco, et al. But an other-world version of Caitlin as Killer Frost would be acceptable to me. (And if losing Ronnie a second time isn't enough of a tragic, emotionally-wrought "moment" to totally rock her world, I don't know what one is.)

I like how the last staff has the first character hanging from it.

Make it a to-the-death match, and I'd pay to see that. Drone strike on the semi-finals. There's bound to be a terrorist in there somewhere. NT: Things that happen in the Supergirl pilot that will make you say, "I didn't see that coming.."

Why did the badger cross the road? To get to the otter side.

Or guys with green cosmic powers being stopped by the color yellow. I was baffled and amused by the character, I believe in European Enemies, who had an Energy Blast with an Increased STUN Modifier. Was that Casca? Or the costume of the Ruler of Crime (I think from Enemies: The International File?) IIRC, he wore a white bodysuit with ruler markings up the side. Hey, at least the eyewitnesses will always get his height correct...

To be honest, sound logic isn't the main reason for me to watch most shows. My favorite shows are, 9 times out of 10, due to the characters. And The Flash has, IMO, done a wonderful job with most of the characters. I loved watching Warehouse 13 when it was on SyFy. They had some wonky logic at times. But really, they could have had an episode with Pete, Myka, Artie, Claudia, and Jinx selling encyclopedias door-to-door and I probably would have enjoyed it. That said, I wouldn't want the writers of The Flash to completely ignore continuity and go all-out stupid. But at this point I'm willing to overlook things as long as they fit okay with comic book tropes.

FYI: Vehicles' STR and Movement powers cost no END in both CC and 6E. And 61 - 12 = 49, not 53. Also, a vehicle comes with 12m Ground Movement and 4m Swimming for free; you can shave off another 2 points by buying off the Swimming. (A submarine would presumably buy back the Ground Movement.) I actually come out under their 133 points, if applying the -1/2 Limitation on the 4 DEF. Name Size OCV+ Mass (KB) STR DEF BODY DEX OCV DCV SPD Move MAX Cost Motorcycle 2.5x1x1m +0 200kg (-1) 20 4 11 20 7 7 3 56m x4 672m 133/27 So, Size (5 pts), STR (5 pts), DEF (2 pts), DEX (20 pts), OCV (20 pts), DCV (20 pts), SPD (10 pts) Move (49 pts - 2 pts) = 129 pts. Leaves 4 points for a headlight. Or, if you don't put the Limitation on the 4 DEF, you get Size (5 pts), STR (5 pts), DEF (6 pts), DEX (20 pts), OCV (20 pts), DCV (20 pts), SPD (10 pts) Move (49 pts - 2 pts) = 133pts.

A few of my thoughts: I liked how they replicated the iconic Flash of Two Worlds comic cover in last night's episode. Not being a big fan of Iris, I'm liking the interaction between Patty Spivot and Barry and hope that develops into something deeper.