BoloOfEarth

Re: Jokes

A fellow walks into a pet store and asks to buy a canary. The proprietor replies, "I'm fresh out, but I DO have a parakeet." The customer insists on a canary, until the shop owner informs him that a parakeet can be made to sound like a canary if one files the beak just so. "But be careful not to file too much off, or the parakeet will drown when he goes to take a drink of water." The potential customer decides that this is complete bullshit, but thanks the shop owner politely and leaves, sans parakeet.

He goes into another pet shop and asks for a canary -- no luck. "But", says the shop owner, "I do have a parakeet, and if you file the beak just so, it can be made to sound just like a canary." He goes on to explain that filing off too much beak will jeopardize the bird's life, due to the potential for drowning when he takes a drink. The fellow finally decides that there is some merit to these claims and buys the parakeet. "Besides", he thinks to himself, "parakeets are much cheaper."

His next stop is a hardware store, where he wanders into the file section, holding his recently purchased bird. The owner wanders by and asks of he needs some help. The new bird owner sheepishly explains how he intends to make his parakeet sing like a canary. The hardware store owner knowingly picks up a file and hands it to him. "Here, a Nichols #2 bastard file. But be careful not to file too much off, or the poor beastie might drown." The bird and file owner thanks the hardware store owner and leaves for home.

A few weeks later, the bird owner wanders into the hardware store. The owner, recognizing him, asks how he made out with the parakeet. The fellow looks down and sadly reports "Bird's dead". The hardware store owner shares his sorrow and asks "Filed off too much beak?" To which the former bird owner replies "Nah, he was dead when I took him out of the vise."

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Hang Down Your Head, Tom Daschle by the Capitol Steps

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Birthday Greetings you don't necessarily want.

"Hi, I'm from Sal's Supersize Strip-o-gram, no stripper less than 350 pounds! Where's the birthday boy?"

Re: The Funny Villains

Other than Foxbat, most of mine are home-grown.

I had Max Extreme, an extreme-sports fan with a high-speed battlesuit. He loved to do move-throughs (though his targeting wasn't always the best). He wanted to join the hero team something fierce, kept showing up to "help" them, once put Foxbat in the hospital by accident. Though technically a hero, he caused enough trouble for the heroes to qualify here as an honorary villain.

The Windy City Sportsmen are my current creation, a bunch of guys using a Chicago sports motif that mostly like to drink beer and have fun. In terms of personality, imagine a group of superpowered frat guys with little regard for laws. Iron Mike had his name legally changed to Mike Ditka, then his appearance surgically altered to more closely resemble his hero. Unfortunately, VIPER was the one doing the alterations... Then there's Bull, a tall African American speedster who dislikes basketball and absolutely hates the sterotyped assumption that he's a hoop natural. Bear, a former high school football star and now a were-bear. Cubbie of course is a rabid Cubs fan (is there any other type?) with teleportation powers and the ability to "borrow" the specialty baseballs from the pocket dimesion where Fastball (of Cy-Force, from 4th Ed's High Tech Enemies) stores them. Blackhawk is a gung-ho helicopter pilot with just a touch too much confidence in his flying ability and a bit too gung-ho about guns (Iron Mike insisted on adding non-lethal ammo to his arsenal). And finally (and least original of all), Fire, the Human Torch type that has too much fun using his powers.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Signs that movie product placement deals have finally gone too far.

"Okay, Jackie, you're playing the Chinese cop, Pep Si. You are in an uneasy alliance with an American cop, Hal I. Burton, trying to stop an assassination attempt on the President and Vice President..."

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: I think' date=' therefore......[/quote']

 

...I must not be blonde.

Re: Help! I'm stuck in a disad rut!

From my Femmes Fatale supervillainess team:

Aspect has Code vs. Killing and Reputation: Murderer (not true, she was being slandered to discredit her)

Tara and Kara are the twin bricks, and have an abnormally dense body structure (don't dare comment about their weight!). They have a Physical Limitation that they can't float or swim.

Their mentalist has Susceptability: 2d6/phase when mentally linked to someone in pain.

Their agents, the Boy Toys, are basically muscle-bound normal males. They would frequently jump in front of heroes' attacks or attack superheroes single-handed to try and impress the Femmes. They'd also occasionally try to get the heroes' help. "C'mon, dude, be cool and make me look good for the babes, okay?"

Re: Help! I'm stuck in a disad rut!

From my Gamesmen supervillain team (all based on different games):

Physical Limitation: Battlesuit can be Shut Down Remotely (Infrequent, Fully)

Psychological Limitation: Mysophobia (Fear of Germs; Common, Strong)

A shapeshifting character named Roleplayer had two disads: Accidental Change (into person he's touching, 8-) and Pscyhological Limitation: Mildly Schizophrenic (occasionally slips into past personas he's imitated or created)

A swashbuckling villain had DNPC: Maidens in Distress. He couldn't help himself.

Two teammates (Needler and PingPong) with high OCVs and plenty of Combat Skill Levels both had Rivalry versus each other. They would waste levels on bouncing attacls to come up with a trick shot the other couldn't duplicate.

Bankshot, a villain with a pool ball multipower and a pool cue (HtH Attack), talked to his pool cue (he named it Floyd) and would go psycho if it was taken from him.

Psychological Limitation: Conspiracy Nut is always fun.

Re: Uhm... ouch?

Allow it? Sure. If I was in a good mood, I might even tell the player that, where two or more powers act at the same time, and one affects the target's defenses, the defense-affecting power always goes last.

 

Thus, your AVLD applies against the target's hearing flash defense. Then your Dispel shuts off his hearing flash defense until he reactivates it as a 0 phase action on his next turn.

 

I'd need a pretty good explanation for the SFX of the Dispel as well.

Good point about the Dispel, and the target's ability to turn it back on. Another thought is that the target need only buy Difficult to Dispel (+1/4) on the Flash Defense, perhaps twice, and the Dispel becomes effectively useless.

Note that, at least in the original 5th Edition (I don't have 5ER), Dispel was a Standard Attack power, not an Adjustment power, so the effect of Dispel on defenses isn't halved, at least as I read it.

Personally, I'd suggest a 4d6 AVLD (Flash Defense - Hearing) with a Linked 1d6 Drain vs. Flash Defense - Hearing. The sonics are powerful enough to slowly but surely wear down the target's defenses.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN

Great idea, now stolen... er, borrowed... and repped.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: The Tribble demanded that the board celebrate Gillian Anderson's birthday. She found out. She's pleased but not so by the lack of response from the boards posters. She and Tribble demand a show of respect to her divinity. What do you do to appease them ?

But... if she is a divinity... she wouldn't have been born, would she? So we're already showing our respect to her divinity by NOT celebrating a birthday that is obviously a fiction.

[Edit: I like Tim's answer better!]

Re: Jokes

Don't know if this was already up, but a friend just emailed it to me and I thought I'd share:

You are on a horse, galloping at a constant speed. On your right side is a sharp drop off, and on your left side is an elephant traveling at the same speed as you. Directly in front of you is a galloping kangaroo and your horse is unable to overtake it. Behind you is a lion running at the same speed as you and the Kangaroo. What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Ming the Merciless's similarly named' date=' yet less famous, siblings.[/quote']

 

"You think it's EASY going through life as Ping the Purseless?!"

Re: Character out of balance

The second abuse comes from one of the powers in the EC' date=' that of a transformation with no conscious control to pick up any lengthy stick (broom handle, branch, etc. ) and using the transformation turn it into a 2d6HKA AP autofire 3, independent, real weapon with reduced endurance.[/quote']

 

Personally, I also would NEVER allow this blatant munchkinism. But let's assume for a moment that you've lost all sanity and actually consider approving it.

 

Well, as far as this is concerned, you have a, what, 3 BODY broom handle being turned into an 82 Active Point power. (If this is beyond any Active Point cap, that's no-no #1.) Since he's not really paying Character Points for the item (just the Transform), I'd refuse to allow the Independent limitation, but would allow it to be a Universal OAF. So the limitations bring it down to 37 Real Points. That means an extra 7 BODY is needed to transform the broom handle (total of 10 BODY). If he doesn't have 2-3d6 Transform, it will take him more than one Phase to do the Tranform. So maybe that No Conscious Control means he only gets one Phase worth of Transform. Close, but no blaster rifle.

 

And then, you have fun with the Real Weapon Limitation. If the broom handle or stick is old or not in great shape, the resulting weapon should also need some serious work (cleaning, maybe some parts replacement) to get working reliably. And it needs continued maintenance. Don't forget that it likely "heals" its BODY and reverts back to a broom handle in a few weeks. Maybe it Transforms back in the middle of a battle weeks later, if you're one of those quietly-evil GMs.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

What a coincidence. In my Champions game, we have five players, whose characters are: Sentinel, Serendipity, Squeeze, Styx, and Synergy. To mess with the press and villains, they "let slip" a reference to a (non-existent) sixth member, a mentalist named Subliminal.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Signs Enforcer 84 has completely lost his mind.

Wait, he had one to begin with?!

Okay, all right...

He starts looking under the sofa. With a microscope.

NT: Lamest supervillain origin story.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

"Next time I run D&D, I'm going to have to do an adventure where some Yuan-Ti hijack an airship."

(Blank stares.)

"So the PCs can deal with mother****in snakes on a mother****in' plane!"

(Mass groans.)

 

This was about two weeks after my urge to do an adventure titled 'Raiders of the Lost Orc'.

I wrote up a Paranoia adventure once, where an error in the cloning vats caused about 1,000 clones on one individual. All his clones got together and took over the power station, threatening to blow it up. I called it "Ind-Y-ANA Clones and the Temple of Boom."

Re: "So I die and then I download..."

And yes, I know that technically those powers wouldn't allow me to create a duplicate of him in that way, but it was all a GM Plot Device (TM, Patent Pending), so I gave myself permission.

Re: "So I die and then I download..."

I ran a game with one player who had an alien character made up of nannites. If "killed," any remaining nannites would self-destruct, and a new nannite body would be built at his spaceship, with the current memories downloaded in.

It's been a few years, but IIRC, he built it as:

(1) Teleport, Megascale (whole planet), with a Trigger (death/prolonged loss of contact), and limitations of Only to Ship and Only By Trigger, plus

(2) Regeneration, with Resurrection adder.

As a side note, he once spent some time on a parallel dimension, and didn't notify the ship's computer he was going. So it assumed he was dead and built a new body. Unbeknownst to him, two of him were running around for a bit, and at one point his twin ended up saving his life (I believe the twin sacrificed himself to do it).

Re: New Group and I'm Nervous.

I like OzMike's suggestion, as it adds a direct-combat element to the drama. (Some players might have trouble dealing with an environmental danger, which they can't attack.)

Alternately, the power surge could have affected the robots (plugged in and recharging at the time), causing them to attack friend and foe alike.

General suggestion: Plan some things (like other mutants, or additional / more powerful robots) to give the players a challenge, but hold them in reserve in case the players are having problems starting off.

Also, are the players the types to rescue the crew of the research station even though those people work with the people that captured their characters in the first place? They might just say, "eh, let them take care of themselves, it serves them right." Perhaps have 1-2 sympathetic crew members to help the mutants, but need saving / protecting?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: The worst material to make a bridal gown out of.

The skin of the bride's ex-husband.

Re: name this gadget!

BTNG (prounounced "Beating") Staff

Short for Baton-Tonfa-Nunchaku-Grapnel Staff

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

Psst... DT... new topic, please

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: The last thing you want to hear the person in front of you say at the movie theater.

"You know, that baked bean and pork rind casserole was pretty good!"

NT: The last thing you want to see on the movie screen.

Re: Starting equipment and prices

Here are a couple sites:

Justice Unlimited Equipment and Services and Weapons, plus the Overall Site.

And the Dirty 30s Price Guide and main site.