BoloOfEarth

19 hours ago, Grailknight said:

Base move would be 1/2 their average move because a faster runner can drag a slower one along while supporting them. If the characters have Teamwork, use that. If not use DEX rolls. Take the average of what they make (or fail) their rolls by and add/subtract that to the base move that phase. If both fail on the same phase, both need to succeed at a DEX roll or they fall.

I'd actually say if they don't both have Teamwork skill, their DEX roll with a slight penalty (say -1 or -2) as Teamwork is a DEX skill, and those with Teamwork should have a leg up (see what I did there?) on those without it.  Other than that, I like Grailknight's idea above.

I once saw a comedian who used to be a lawyer.  Or as he put it, "Well, I'm still a lawyer, I just used to have clients."

He talked about his first client, for a murder case.  He said:

"The prosecutor said, 'There's no evidence in your client's favor.  I'm not going to offer a plea deal.  I'm going to try him and get him the death penalty.'  So I had to go back to my client and say, 'There really is no evidence in your favor and the prosecutor won't make a deal.  He wants to give you the death penalty. (shrugs)  I think you should take it.'"

"So during the trial, I had to resort to arguments like, 'Mr. Eyewitness, you say you saw my client stab the deceased in the chest.  Did you actually see the knife pierce the skin?  No?  Well, then, you only saw my client stab him in the shirt.'  'Dr. Smith, you're the medical examiner in this case.  Let me ask you a hypothetical question.  If, despite my client stabbing the victim, his heart had continued beating, then would he still be alive today?  Yes?  Well, then, it wasn't my client's stabbing that killed the victim, but his heart's refusal...'"

"My closing argument was, 'It has been said that it is better to let a hundred guilty men go free than to convict one innocent person.  (pause)  My client is guilty.  Let him go.'"

5 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

How many remember "The moral majority is neither."

✋

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

OK, if we're allowing unlimited advantage stacking, I'm bringing in Margarita Man (he should be putting in an appearing in honour of the late Jimmy Buffett anyway).

FWIW, I brought up Margarita Man about 6 posts prior to yours, albeit with a link rather than a quote.

17 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Of course, your GM will probably beat you with a rubber chicken and rip up your character in front of you for cheesing the system so hard, but some sacrifices must be made

And now I need to add a rubber chicken to my GM toolkit.

4 hours ago, Tom Cowan said:

Here is a nice one for penetration.  How long can you stand that 'imp' that can 'sing' polka music at 150 dB?

Mental Illusions 1d6, Invisible Power Effects (Invisible to Mental Group; +1/4), Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) (21 Active Points)

so evil, and cheep

1 hour ago, Tom Cowan said:

it is the Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) that make it good.  Hit once out of combat, pay the END for each action for 192 rounds (speed 2 not in combat type speed) or less then 40 mins then let the madness start (well, after a few days with no sleep).  Mental Defense is normally zero or good and Penetrating slips 1 point through even if the hero has 25 MD

What you're basically talking about is Hugh Neilson's infamous Margarita Man.  

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

And don't sell yourself short, you'd be better than the overwhelming majority of elected officials. 

In fairness, a brain-damaged sloth would be better than the overwhelming majority of elected officials.  

On 9/12/2023 at 10:42 AM, LoneWolf said:

  I still remember him dumping a McDonalds shake on my character and then dumping a coke on me, saying that shakes always made him thirsty. 

See, I'd have had him dump the Coke on the PC first, then the McDonald's shake.  And say, "Coke always gives me the shakes."  Might as well throw a bad pun in there when you can.

It's no wonder the guy on the left is sweating.  He knows there's no way he'll get to the knife before one of the others.

Seriously, what possessed somebody to think, "Hey, I should replace Judy Garland's face with Arnold and have him sing"?

I'll have to counter that with this...

Edit to add:

And I won't disturb you further by posting the video, but do a search for "Little Orphan Arnie" if you want to be both amused and disturbed at the same time.

10 hours ago, assault said:

50th anniversary of the Pinochet coup in Chile, which proved that there is no such thing as enemies, only friends we haven't made yet.

I honestly read that as the Pinocchio coup, and imagined an army of wooden puppets led by a cricket.

Not a news story, but it made my daughter feel a bit better.

Wednesday after work, she stopped to gas up her car, and when she drove off she forgot that she had set her wallet on the back of her car.  Of course, it fell off somewhere along the way.  She was understandably upset.

The next day, a man in a nearby town contacted her via Facebook (having tracked her down from her license) saying that he had found her wallet.  Since he was going to be in her city that day for a vet appointment, he dropped it off in her mailbox - all credit cards and cash intact (only $2, but still).  Didn't ask for a reward (though she's going to try and get him something just to say thank you).  She had been having a very crappy last couple of months, and said that this helped restore some of her faith in humanity.

- - - - - - - - -

Here is an article that also helps restore faith in humanity.

I found $5,000 in a thrift store after it fell out of a shirt I picked up - a note I found meant I had to give it back | The US Sun (the-sun.com)

3 hours ago, mattingly said:

Since it's called dog-earing, wouldn't it be punishable by spaying?

 

Would that make it "Neuter Evil"?

16 hours ago, Ockham's Spoon said:

Ah, I see she met my wife...

On 8/31/2023 at 1:13 PM, Cygnia said:

On 8/31/2023 at 2:26 PM, Lord Liaden said:

The T. Devil owes that name more to the blood-curdling sounds it makes, and its wild movements when it's threatened. Otherwise it's no more aggressive or dangerous to Man than most other small carnivores.

...in Australia.  Which by itself probably increases its danger level by a factor of three.

19 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

A business card for a group calling themselves "MAGAM" appeared in the mailbox.

1 hour ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Make America Great Again Maybe?

40 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

 

Sorry: the description on the card has already been forgotten.

So definitely not Make America Great And Memorable.

18 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

A business card for a group calling themselves "MAGAM" appeared in the mailbox.

Make America Great Again Maybe?

On 8/30/2023 at 11:15 PM, Bazza said:

FOUND OUT MY LOCAL NATIVITY PLAY GAVE THE ROLE OF JESUS TO MY ANNOYING SWEDISH NEPHEW. CHRIST I THOUGHT THE SAVIOUR IS BJORN. 

Should have had him ride in on a pair of sheep.  That way, ON TWO EWE THE SAVIOUR IS BJORN.

5 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

Thank you very much for giving me your first look at the book. It was my first one, so I am definitely still learning.

From the parts I did read, it didn't seem like a first effort.  (For instance, it doesn't seem riddled with poor grammar and misspellings galore.)  There were a few things I laughed out loud at.  (Referring to Genocide:  "Plus the branding sucked.")  I'm pretty sure there will be more.  Keep up the good work.

(One tip, though - "it's" is short for "it is", not the possessive of "it".  Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine, and each time I saw it used incorrectly I cringed.)

Gotta admit, I found this kinda cool.

Ukraine is fielding new $3,500 'cardboard' drones against Russia — they're flat-packed and could prove deadly (msn.com)

Good enough for me.  I picked up a copy.  (Well, the paper copy will come in time, but I could go into the PDF copy immediately.)

Haven't had time yet to go through it in detail, just flipped through it and read a few bits and pieces, so most of what I can give at this point are impressions and generalities.

I like the overall look of it.  Nice and clean, with good headings / subheadings.  For instance, I really like how the Mutant Classifications are laid out. At times, the text seems to go a bit close to the header / footer bars, but that's not a deal-breaker and may be different in the printed version.  (I'll have to wait and see for that.) 

I also like the distinctive look of the character writeups, though I think there's a bit too much white space there (particularly between the various skills, though other things could be tightened up as well).  Also on the down side, I really wish all of the individual characters had character art depicting them (even if it was just a group pic, like "Father" Todd with the Sons of the Father gathered around him).  I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for superhero / supervillain character art, and not seeing it for all characters was disappointing to me.

Power-level wise, some of them (the Minuteman Mk. 7 and the MTU - I'm kinda surprised you actually used Terminator without worrying about copyright issues) are meant to take on whole teams, or at least multiple foes at once.  Most of them, though, look good for going one-on-one (or one-on-two) with your PC heroes.  (This is with the caveat that I didn't dive deep enough to see how balanced the various characters are.)

Missing character art withstanding, I really liked the related or semi-related art throughout (good quality stuff, too).  I kinda wish there was some scattered through the Equipment Manifold, even if they were just some standard real-world pistols / rifles / grenade launchers, but you can't have everything.  (Where would you put it?)

Anyway, on the whole I'm happy with my purchase.

Edit to add:  Yes, I know this review is light on actual content about the IHA.  I'd like to do some reading of it before making substantive comments there.

BTW, who is the author of the IHA book?  

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

IME many players would rather their characters be killed than humiliated.

(nods)  Absolutely.  Most would also rather die than be captured.  

I just remembered a home-brew NPC hero I created to apply to join the PC hero team.  Not someone they hated, but rather someone they definitely didn't want on their team, nor fighting alongside them.

Stalwart (formerly Major Justice, Captain Incredible, Lieutenant Freedom, Longhorn, and Flying Thunder) was a flying brick.  He had been a member of (or otherwise affiliated with) a number of superhero teams over the prior 15 years.  He was practically invulnerable, had a good STR (50 to 60), and could fly decently fast (about 45 mph).  

He had two problems.  One was in his approach to crimefighting - very much in-your-face berating of criminals (and sometimes fellow heroes) with a very black-and-white, no-shades-of-gray view of good vs. evil and adherance to the law.  While it wasn't proven, he had reportedly gotten several NPC heroes he'd worked with investigated or arrested for playing fast and loose with legalities, and in a few cases for stepping over the line into outright illegal behavior.

The bigger problem involved his invulnerability.  Basically, he avoided a good chunk of physical and energy damage coming his way by converting a portion of it into kinetic energy directed away from him.  In other words, if he was hit with an attack, he automatically took double Knockback.  Not good for a flying character.  He'd spend most battles getting hit and subsequently blasted through a wall / building / etc., and then having to fly back into the fray.  He racked up quite a good amount of collateral damage, with some unintended bystander injuries as well (though to his mind, that wasn't really his fault).  IIRC when the PC heroes contacted other hero teams for info on Stalwart, NPC heroes referred to him as "Crash Bandicoot" and "Captain Destruction."

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

CLOWN.

 

Absolutely no contest.  No other annoyance, no other published or homebrewed villain has ever come close.  Even as an amateur etymologist, I am completely at a loss to find any words (that wont get me banned) to describe what a horrible, horrible, horrible idea CLOWN was in every possible way, or how unfathomable desperate ICE must have been for something to publish.  Never in the history of the written word-- and I am including fan fiction and furry porn here-  has anything so absolutely awful ever been put to paper.

Someone, somewhere on these boards (maybe Hermit?) had (IMO) a great idea for revising CLOWN.  IIRC, their pranks were changed to be more socially / environmentally conscious.  So if a bank was using unfair practices in signing customers up for loans / credit cards / etc., CLOWN might decide to paper the town with loan / credit card applications featuring the actual financial info for the bank's CEO and executive officers.  A company guilty of dumping toxic waste might have such waste sprayed throughout their offices (at night, after first removing from the building the night watchmen and any employees working after hours).  Remove any potential lethality (and IIRC, they were supposed to be non-lethal anyway) as well as remove the likelihood that they might target the player character heroes, and give them a goal that's fairly laudable (even if their execution is not to the players liking).  I'd think most players would then have less of an issue with them.

19 hours ago, Barton said:

Foxbat, my players hate him the most.

17 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Ahhhhh... I love Foxbat, he's my most favorite hero.

1 hour ago, Hermit said:

Much as I love him, I've had to cut down on my use of Foxbat for my players' sake

To show how much I like Foxbat...  see below.

In a past Champions campaign, I created the Foxbat Five (25% better than the Fantastic Four, because... Five).  They were always a lot of fun, both for me to play as well as (I believe) for the players to battle.  The best was when the Foxbat Five dressed up as villains from the 1960s Batman TV show and tried to kidnap Adam West and Burt Ward at a mall opening (forcing them into ill-fitting Batman and Robin costumes).  Without knowing the FF were going to show up dressed as Joker, Penguin, Riddler, etc. the heroes decided to wear costumes for the *same* villains.  It was epic.

But yes, he can get tiring with over-use.  You need to create just the right adventures for Foxbat.