BoloOfEarth

I'm not a big DC fan, but I would love to see a Booster Gold movie. 

Booster Gold screenplay

Ark Encounter sues insurers
 

The man known as BugOut is a former cat burglar who stole a high-tech battlesuit that allows him to shrink to the size of an insect, and to mentally command legions of various insects to help him commit crimes.  Since stealing the BugOut suit, he has studied insects to the point that he's become a fairly decent amateur entomologist.  He is currently searching for a way to also command arachnids (which, contrary to common perception, are not insects), hoping to use that as a way to combat his frequent foe, Arachno-Guy.

One of the things I've been doing of late is updating some of the military material for San Angelo: City of Heroes Vol. 2. Specifically, the military units at Forgan AFB. Here are the unit patches we created. It's not every unit, but we did logos for the 967th Airlift Wing, the main Groups, and a few of the squadrons that characters would be most likely to interact with in-game. Enjoy.

In our published setting it's the Paranormal Alert Response Team (P.A.R.T.). Advances in equipment since the original book will see them utilizing special powered armor (see below).
 
The Sheriff's Department has it's own version, called the Sheriff's Armored Felony Enforcement (S.A.F.E.) Team. It's a team of highly trained deputies in powered armor, much like the City's PART unit.
 
The basic powered armor used by both teams is based on the Cavalier armor of the 1990s. It has anti-ballistic plates, basic air filtration, enhanced strength, an enhanced sensory suite, communications system, a handful of defensive systems, and less-lethal weapons available, all monitored and controlled via a modern Heads Up Display (HUD). Additional modules are available which convert the suit to a more specialized role. These include the Flight module, Lethal Force module (sometimes called the "sniper suit"), a Heavy Weapons module (called "big guns"), and an Environmental module (called the "Haz-Mat" suit).
 
There are four squads of six deputies each. Each squad has two Flight units, two Heavy Weapons units, and two Lethal Force units. (The SAFE team does not maintian any Environmental units.)

In honor of the recent National Police Week, we present the San Angelo area law enforcement agency patches. Enjoy.

(shrug)  That same PC hero has a magic VPP he can change as a half-Phase action, so adding Hearing Flash Defense, or indeed any other defense, to his powers even on the fly is fairly trivial for him.  The team gadgeteer has a gadget VPP that can do the same thing.  And in this particular case, they had a pretty good idea who their foes were going to be - including that one of them has sonic attacks - as well as pretty much when and where they were going to attack.  (The news sheet I emailed before the game was as subtle as a brick.)  Overall, I think I telegraphed the punch pretty well.  If they don't want to duck the blow, or at least try to duck blows after the first one, that's their choice. 
 
And it's not like the bad guys immediately start using similar powers as soon as the heroes roll theirs out.  Malarkey has had that attack for well over a year.  He's been able to use it, fairly frequently, to great effect.  (In the game a few weeks before, he used it to single-handedly take out over a dozen Genocide Purity League Pawns in about 2-3 Phases - I think only two got any shots off at all - while simultaneously putting a decent hurt on the more powerful Rooks and Knights.)  Given that this particular power is a slot in a Multipower with OAF and Charges, he's gotten a ton of use out of those 4 points he paid.
 
It works the other direction, too - the players have copied powerful builds that villains have used against them.  If I roll something out against them, I'm perfectly okay with them buying something similar.  I'd like to think that keeps me from getting too cheesy with the bad guys' powers.

(shrug)  That same PC hero has a magic VPP he can change as a half-Phase action, so adding Hearing Flash Defense, or indeed any other defense, to his powers even on the fly is fairly trivial for him.  The team gadgeteer has a gadget VPP that can do the same thing.  And in this particular case, they had a pretty good idea who their foes were going to be - including that one of them has sonic attacks - as well as pretty much when and where they were going to attack.  (The news sheet I emailed before the game was as subtle as a brick.)  Overall, I think I telegraphed the punch pretty well.  If they don't want to duck the blow, or at least try to duck blows after the first one, that's their choice. 
 
And it's not like the bad guys immediately start using similar powers as soon as the heroes roll theirs out.  Malarkey has had that attack for well over a year.  He's been able to use it, fairly frequently, to great effect.  (In the game a few weeks before, he used it to single-handedly take out over a dozen Genocide Purity League Pawns in about 2-3 Phases - I think only two got any shots off at all - while simultaneously putting a decent hurt on the more powerful Rooks and Knights.)  Given that this particular power is a slot in a Multipower with OAF and Charges, he's gotten a ton of use out of those 4 points he paid.
 
It works the other direction, too - the players have copied powerful builds that villains have used against them.  If I roll something out against them, I'm perfectly okay with them buying something similar.  I'd like to think that keeps me from getting too cheesy with the bad guys' powers.

(shrug)  That same PC hero has a magic VPP he can change as a half-Phase action, so adding Hearing Flash Defense, or indeed any other defense, to his powers even on the fly is fairly trivial for him.  The team gadgeteer has a gadget VPP that can do the same thing.  And in this particular case, they had a pretty good idea who their foes were going to be - including that one of them has sonic attacks - as well as pretty much when and where they were going to attack.  (The news sheet I emailed before the game was as subtle as a brick.)  Overall, I think I telegraphed the punch pretty well.  If they don't want to duck the blow, or at least try to duck blows after the first one, that's their choice. 
 
And it's not like the bad guys immediately start using similar powers as soon as the heroes roll theirs out.  Malarkey has had that attack for well over a year.  He's been able to use it, fairly frequently, to great effect.  (In the game a few weeks before, he used it to single-handedly take out over a dozen Genocide Purity League Pawns in about 2-3 Phases - I think only two got any shots off at all - while simultaneously putting a decent hurt on the more powerful Rooks and Knights.)  Given that this particular power is a slot in a Multipower with OAF and Charges, he's gotten a ton of use out of those 4 points he paid.
 
It works the other direction, too - the players have copied powerful builds that villains have used against them.  If I roll something out against them, I'm perfectly okay with them buying something similar.  I'd like to think that keeps me from getting too cheesy with the bad guys' powers.

Pre-6th Edition:  Character with 12 SPD and 1d6 NND on Continuing Charges of 1 Turn Duration.  Effectively a 12d6 NND, and you can hit 6 different people in half a Turn.  Character was a shrinker, too, so he was difficult to find and attack.  In 6th, you could do something similar with Damage Over Time, even if your SPD isn'1 12.
 
Many powers with UBO can be used quite cheesily.  Especially on Defense powers.  There's a reason UBO has a warning sign.
 
Mental entangles.  (Though lately some of the bad guys have been showing up with a nice defense against those.  GMs can churn out the cheese, too!)
 
AVAD attacks against unusual defenses (e.g. Resistant Mental Defense, Resistant Power Defense, or odd Flash Defenses).  Add some AoE, and even a small number of dice can become nasty. 
 
As a GM, I tend to fight Cheddar with a nice Gouda.  IOW, if the players want to be able to do something cheesy, they need to be prepared for the bad guys to use the same types of power builds. 
 
For instance, Malarkey (PC hero) has a power that's something like Blast 6d6, AVAD (Resistant Mental Defense), AoE (4m Radius Selective).  With it, he can basically take out whole squads of agents (Stunning them in the first phase, KO'ing them in the second).  And he can cause a lot of damage to most supervillains with it as well, especially if they group together.  Last night, the heroes ran into a sonic supervillainess who had Blast 6d6, AVAD (Hearing Flash Defense), AoE (8m Cone).  Since few of the heroes had any Hearing Flash Defense, and those who did had only a few points worth, they weren't terribly happy.  But then again, sauce for the goose...

Pre-6th Edition:  Character with 12 SPD and 1d6 NND on Continuing Charges of 1 Turn Duration.  Effectively a 12d6 NND, and you can hit 6 different people in half a Turn.  Character was a shrinker, too, so he was difficult to find and attack.  In 6th, you could do something similar with Damage Over Time, even if your SPD isn'1 12.
 
Many powers with UBO can be used quite cheesily.  Especially on Defense powers.  There's a reason UBO has a warning sign.
 
Mental entangles.  (Though lately some of the bad guys have been showing up with a nice defense against those.  GMs can churn out the cheese, too!)
 
AVAD attacks against unusual defenses (e.g. Resistant Mental Defense, Resistant Power Defense, or odd Flash Defenses).  Add some AoE, and even a small number of dice can become nasty. 
 
As a GM, I tend to fight Cheddar with a nice Gouda.  IOW, if the players want to be able to do something cheesy, they need to be prepared for the bad guys to use the same types of power builds. 
 
For instance, Malarkey (PC hero) has a power that's something like Blast 6d6, AVAD (Resistant Mental Defense), AoE (4m Radius Selective).  With it, he can basically take out whole squads of agents (Stunning them in the first phase, KO'ing them in the second).  And he can cause a lot of damage to most supervillains with it as well, especially if they group together.  Last night, the heroes ran into a sonic supervillainess who had Blast 6d6, AVAD (Hearing Flash Defense), AoE (8m Cone).  Since few of the heroes had any Hearing Flash Defense, and those who did had only a few points worth, they weren't terribly happy.  But then again, sauce for the goose...

When they do blow apart the boulder, why would I not be surprised if they found a squashed coyote underneath it?

There's a difference between resisting and completely ignoring.  And these are anti-tank missiles, after all.  They should have at least a fair chance of doing some damage to a tank.  I mean, it's in the name, right? 

Hmm.  There are sensitive souls for whom such awful design decisions might cause real distress - I find I have no idea how to spoiler the image though...the problem is that the character is not even interesting enough to partially compensate...
 
EDIT - worked it out....
 

As I was reading the description but before reading the options, I was thinking ablative.
 
But I'm not sure the mechanics of doing ablative with DCV.
 
If someone autofires against you, are you using up DCV per shot? Per theoretical hit?

I don't agree.  I think that the damage negation should be the effect of a drone taking a hit and reducing the amount of damage that gets through, what might change as time goes on is the ability of a drone to get in the way but if it does, the protection afforded should be the same.
 
I think what we all agree is that we are not talking about protection, that can be modelled 100 ways to Christmas.  What we are circling round is how that protection degrades over time and how it might be restored.
 
I agree with Surrealone in that you do not want this to get too complicated or it will be a pain during the game.  I would be happy with the damage negation with 8 charges.  If you wanted to make it degrade in effectiveness as the drones get destroyed, then give it an activation 14-, and lose 1 in the activation roll for every 2 drones destroyed.  Personally, even that would be too fiddly for me, I would stick to the damage negation, 8 charges.

I like #2 the best, as it seems the cleanest and most representative of what you describe (among the proposed approaches) while being less hand-wavey (IMHO) than #3 (due to reliance on Ablative which, per RAW, is specifically for STUN or BOD damage IIRC) … and because #1 seems un-necessarily convoluted.
 
I don't particularly care for the Force Wall or Damage Negation suggestions, either, because I think both of them would need to rely on Ablative, too - in order to properly represent the reductions associated with each sacrifice. 

I would be attracted to Damage Negation with charges. You would not need to buy much to provide solid protection to effective damage but would open up the idea of an overwhelming attack burning straight through a drone and still damage the character.

Something that I considered was to make it either RP or DR with ablative.  As the char gains xp, ubo can be added to this ability (to represent that the drones are going to others).

I'd go with either #2 or #3. 
 
 
I love the idea BTW!

I'm inclined with idea #3 as well.
 
For a different angle, what if you buy 8 Force Walls as foci and they would protect from the 8 attacks completely.  Perhaps they can talk incessantly to really present the Drone (on) effect? 

I'm working on a character who has drones that buzz around her, whose sole purpose is to automatically sacrifice themselves to deflect attacks coming her way.  (So if she has 8 drones, they can at most stop 8 attacks before she no longer has any drone defense, and I'm okay with the defense becoming less good as drones drop.)  To be clear, I don't want her to constantly have to use her own combat actions to activate this defense -- these  are automated drones.
 
I can see several ways to do this in 6E (and know that the fine minds out there will probably come up with several more I hadn't considered), and I'm trying to figure out the easiest / simplest / best way to do this.
 
(Messiest option, IMO, but most literal)  Buy eight Followers (or more likely, Summon 8x Drones), giving them Flight, probably Mind Link among themselves, just enough defenses to absorb one hit and die, and let them individually interpose themselves in front of attacks heading her way. Buy Deflection (either Uncontrolled, on a Continuing Charge, or on an automatically-resetting Trigger with 8 Charges) along with additional CSLs in Deflection.  Then, the increasing penalty (or the Triggered Charges) represents drones sacrificing themselves until she has no more. Buy additional DCV, with Ablative (loses some DCV each time an attack misses her because of the added DCV).  So she starts with +8 DCV, and then goes to +7, then +6, etc. as subsequent attacks miss her due to the DCV bonus.  
Personally, I'm liking option #3, but am open to suggestions.

Blue Moa Slayer : once there was a species of giant birds living on the islands of New Zealand. The largest of them was the Blue Moa, a magical creature of immense potential. It was killed hundreds of years ago by a tribesman on a search for power and glory. The hunter took the blood and imbued himself with the magical power of the Blue Moa with the tattoos that cover his body. Longevity, strength and speed, quick thinking and minor magical abilities....
Over the years and decades the Blue Moa (as he calls himself) has become a power hungry, blood thirsty individual.
He runs at 60 km/h for hours, three times as fast when sprinting, jumps 12m high, 50m broad and lifts a ton

Not exactly a quote, but an interesting event overall, and I can't really think of a more relevant place to put it.
 
My youth group game is the only "weekly" game I have, after all, the other two being a bi-weekly game and an "at least every four weeks; more if possible" game.
 
I picked up a set of these:
 
 https://www.amazon.com/Oojami-Giant-Wooden-Carrying-Canvas/dp/B072KGYFLF/ref=sr_1_8?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxYnMwq2o4gIVksDICh01aw9UEAAYASAAEgK7a_D_BwE&hvadid=328191546198&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9011003&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=4774527260171532108&hvtargid=kwd-314746230900&hydadcr=2335_9913328&keywords=large+dice+wooden&qid=1558295080&s=gateway&sr=8-8
 
 
Not _exactly_ those, but similar.
 
For those not wanting to follow links posted by relative strangers on the internet, it leads to a set of wooden dice roughly 3-1/2" on a side.  They are essentially waste cuts and drops from hardwood 4x4s, evened up and finished into "yard dice" or "lawn dice" or  (creatively)  "Yardzee" dice.  Went to Statesboro yesterday (wife wanted to go to Hobby Lobby and get some new brushes) and I saw the set of five (yeah, the set I bought only had 5 pieces, but then, it rang up at ten bucks, so I'm good   ) and picked it up.  On the way home we stopped and she bought a car, but this isn't that story.  In fact, all I will say about that story is that, after nearly two decades of road tripping in the Leviathan, she now claims she wants something that rides better.  (the nerve of some people!)
 
 
So, in honor of the last of the bearable summer weather  (by this time next week, central GA will be Hell's own bakery), I decided to do something to get us out into the weather and enjoy the last breeze we're going to have until January.  
 
We used three of the dice as "Skill check" dice-- forgive the non-HERO-ness of the term, but over the years, I have found people pick up on the roll for Skills and Roll to Hit if they learn them to be "Skill Checks."  Don't know why, unless it just helps them group the mechanics in their head.  Now make no mistake, rolling three of those dice isn't possible.  You end up sort of backsnap-tossing it into the air to give it random spins, etc, and wait for it to land.  (I know: I played around with the viability of this idea last night when we got home and the wife was tired of driving her new car.)
 
I don't know why-- probably for _me_, as things conspire to keep me out of pretty weather but locked outside in rain, blast-ovens, of near-freezing temperatures with shocking regularity-- but I really wanted this to be a fun thing to do.
 
So I grabbed a few paint paddles-- the little balsa or white-wood slats they give you when you buy a can of paint-- and selected tomorrow's (today's) bad guys and a few random NPC-types, ad of course, the Heroes themselves, then printed the character portraits (remember I still use 2e, and our character sheets are _way_ more fun than anything that's come after 4e) and glued them the paint paddles.
 
Today's game featured the all-new fair-weather attack technique of "Bowl to Hit."  When a character wished to make an attack, his target's wood-and-paper effigy was stuck in the dirt roughly eight feet away.  The player had three shots (roll 3d6, right? )  he would fire off his three dice toward his target.  If at any time he hit the target with one of the dice, bingo!  Automatic hit.  :D.  If he did _not_ hit the target but the total of the three dice said he made it, then he hit.  If he both hit the target _and_ made his roll, then a random good thing happened: extra damage, automatic Stunning, or some such thing as that.
 
If there were _multiple_ opponents, then multiple targets were set up.  You might hit an opponent totally different from the one you were aiming at!  And of course, the die total might say "nope; seems you hit the _both_!    
 
And if there were innocent bystanders, well things got....  dicey..... (wow. That hurt more than I thought it would) 
 
It was really funny watching them just _sling_ the dice at the villains, but when there were civilians, they'd oh-so-carefully line up their shots, roll the die, and wince at every odd tumble.....      "There."  I proclaimed.  "Now you have a _much_ better idea of what it's like to actually be a super-hero-- to know how much power you have, and how easily you could accidentally hurt someone.  You understand the worry and fear your character's should have when fighting out in the open, and you understand why you might want to restrain the amount of power you use when something bad happens at the mall or the amusement park. "  Most of them found that to be eye-opening, as most of them (the oldest is in ninth grade right now) get their ideas of superheroes from movies, which don't seem to put a lot of emphasis on internal struggle or watching out for the civilians.
 
 
Yeah, this story goes nowhere, and only has a single quote, and it's by the world's worst Superhero Sensei, but still: it was a blast, and I wanted to share it.
 
 
Y'all have fun.
 
 
 
Duke